The curious case of the Clockwork Man bas-2

by Mark Hodder

  Swinburne raised the spine-shooter and fired again, hitting the advancing monstrosity in the chest. The spines had no effect other than to elicit another roar.

  The poet and policeman retreated into the study.

  “What's happenin’?” Herbert Spencer asked.

  “Big trouble,” Trounce grunted. “Very big indeed!”

  The Claimant blocked the doorway, wedged his vast body into it, and began to shove himself through. The door frame split.

  “Cover your ears,” Trounce muttered. Swinburne and Spencer did so. The Scotland Yard man had finally freed his revolver. He fired a shot into one of the unwelcome visitor's beefy thighs.

  The Claimant yelled incoherently, grabbed the side and top of the door, and ripped it from its hinges. He threw it at Trounce.

  The slab of wood smashed into the detective inspector and sent him stumbling backward. He fell to his knees, dazed.

  “Repulsive toad!” Pox squawked, and sought refuge on top of a bookcase.

  Herbert Spencer grabbed a brass poker from the hearth and brandished it like a sword.

  “What'll we do, lad?” he mumbled, gaping at the slowly advancing mountain of flesh.

  Swinburne, standing beside the vagrant philosopher, became conscious that the mantelpiece was at his back. No retreat. He glanced to the left. Both the study windows were closed. No escape there, not that anyone could survive the jump. He grimaced. His head had started aching and his thoughts were becoming turgid and confused. He was feeling the baleful influence of the Choir Stones, which were still embedded in the Claimant's scalp. He felt an urge to welcome Sir Roger Tichborne to the house and to help him fight his enemies.

  He gritted his teeth.

  He looked to the right and saw Admiral Lord Nelson standing immobile by the door to the dressing room.

  The faux aristocrat lumbered closer.

  A fat hand reached out.

  Swinburne, without thinking, screeched: “Nelson! Throw this obese bastard out of the house the fastest way possible! At once!”

  The clockwork man bent his upper torso forward and accelerated away from the wall, a blur of gleaming metal.

  The Claimant turned toward the movement.

  Nelson collided with the giant's belly, snapped his mechanical arms out straight, and pushed with all his spring-loaded might.

  Neither Swinburne nor Herbert Spencer had any inkling that the clockwork man possessed the power that, in a shocking instant, now became evident.

  The whalelike mass of the Tichborne Claimant was thrown into the air and right across the study. He hit the window and went out through it, taking the glass, the frame, and a considerable chunk of the wall on either side of it with him.

  The shattering crash was tremendous, and was followed by the clatter and bangs of falling masonry as the front part of 14 Montagu Place suffered his unexpected exit.

  Detective Inspector Trounce, shaking his head to clear it, staggered to his feet and peered around at the room. It looked as if a bomb had exploded in it. The Claimant's passage had wrecked furniture, brick dust swirled around, and Burton's papers were raining down like autumn leaves.

  “Bloody hell!” he gasped.

  Admiral Lord Nelson turned to the poet and saluted.

  “Yes, thank you, old chap,” Swinburne responded meekly. “Very effective, though not quite as neat as the trick they worked on Sir Alfred. My hat! Mrs. Angell is going to kill me.”

  Herbert Spencer gingerly approached the gaping hole in the wall and squinted out at the street below. It was enshrouded by steam, billowing about in a slight breeze. He saw movement in the cloud.

  “Gents,” he said quietly. “Do you happen to have a spare pistol I could borrow? That thing ain't dead.”

  “You're not serious?” Trounce exclaimed.

  “It's layin’ on the pavement but it looks to me like it's just winded.”

  The Scotland Yard man retrieved his revolver from the floor.

  Swinburne stepped up to one of Burton's desks and pulled a pistol from its drawer. He handed it to Spencer.

  Trounce growled: “Let's get out there and finish that abomination off!”

  He set his jaw and marched out of the study. Spencer and Swinburne followed. The poet looked back over his shoulder at Nelson.

  “Come on, Admiral.”

  The three men and the clockwork device descended to the hallway. Trounce quickly checked Mrs. Angell, who was sitting dazed against the wall.

  “Go down to your rooms, dear. We'll come and tell you when it's safe.”

  Swinburne picked Burton's silver-handled swordstick from the elephant-foot umbrella stand by the front door. He handed it to Nelson.

  “Here, unsheathe it and don't hesitate to use it. If you can manage it, slice the lumps off the fat man's head.”

  The mechanical valet saluted.

  “What's that?” Trounce exclaimed. “Why play silly beggars? Wouldn't it be better to run the damned beast through the heart?”

  “The Francois Garnier diamonds are sewn into those lumps, Detective Inspector.”

  “Brundleweed's stones!” Trounce cried. “And you've only just thought to tell me?”

  “Richard had his reasons for keeping it quiet. All you need to know for now is that if we can free the fiend from their influence, we might be able to get some information out of him.”

  Trounce grunted and shook his head. “Perhaps, but I'll tell you, lad: if that brute looks to be getting the upper hand, I'll not hesitate to put a bullet through his brain!”

  They went outside. Palmerston's guards were slumped in the mobile castle's bartizans, their heads shattered by their own bullets. The four cavalrymen lay dead in the road.

  Wraiths moved through the haze.

  As Swinburne led his companions out onto the pavement, the mist parted, and the Claimant came charging out of it like an enraged hippopotamus. Before any of them could raise a weapon, they were sent flying. Swinburne and Spencer both ended up on their backs in the gutter, while Nelson clanged noisily against one of Palmerston's steam-horses. Trounce was grabbed by the collar, yanked off his feet, and thrown high into the air and clear across the road. He thumped down headfirst onto the opposite pavement, rolled, and lay still.

  Nelson ducked under the Claimant's swinging fist and scuttled away to retrieve the rapier, which had been knocked out of his hand. Swinburne rolled under the steam-horse and out the other side. He jumped up then backpedalled rapidly when he found himself looking a wraith full in the face.

  “Argh!” he cried, and clutched the sides of his head. He felt a terrible pressure on his brain. “No!” he gasped. “I'll not let you inside! Not ever again!”

  A gunshot echoed as Herbert Spencer put a bullet into the Claimant's side. The philosopher scrambled to his feet, turned, and ran to the back of the prime minister's carriage. A ghostly hand clutched at his arm. He struggled in the grip of a wraith.

  The Claimant flew into a berserk rage. Stamping his feet and waving his arms, he hollered and howled, screamed and hissed, and threw himself into the side of the foremost of the two steam-horses. It must have weighed well over a ton, but under his onslaught, the machine keeled over, narrowly missed crushing Swinburne, and skidded across the cobbles on its side, showering sparks and emitting a plume of white vapour as one of its pipes tore open.

  “Mother!” a muffled voice cried from inside the mobile castle's front cabin. “Help me!”

  It was Palmerston's driver, who'd been quaking inside the box ever since the wraiths had appeared and caused the deaths of the guards.

  The piggy eyes of the Claimant flicked to the source of the sound. In one stride he was beside it, grabbing the edges of the wedge-shaped compartment. He began to heave it back and forth. The man inside wailed piteously.

  Swinburne heard himself mutter: “Tichborne! The bloody toffs are-are-are trying to do away with Tichborne!”

  He shook his head.

  “No!” he growled. “No! No! No! That is not
Sir Roger bloody Tichborne!”

  He stepped straight through the drifting wraith, levelled the cactus gun, and fired. As he touched the trigger nodule, his arm jerked aside, and the spines flew wide.

  “Bloody conspiracy!” he gasped, fighting the words as they forced themselves out of his mouth. As fierce as the battle in the street was, the fight in the poet's head was even more intense.

  Admiral Lord Nelson bounded over to the Claimant and lunged in. His rapier danced. He skipped away. Wraiths swooped around him, grabbing at his arms, but they couldn't hold him.

  The corpulent creature screamed as two of the lumps on its scalp disappeared, sliced off by the sword blade. Blood gushed from the wounds. Black gems bounced into the gutter.

  Swinburne felt a sudden lessening of the pressure on his brain.

  “Herbert!” he cried. “Collect the diamonds! We mustn't lose them!”

  The Claimant twisted and lumbered after Nelson, who now stood a short distance away in the en garde pose. He reached the clockwork man and there commenced a flurry of arms and blade as Nelson jabbed and sliced at the fat behemoth, while the latter attempted to deflect or catch the flashing rapier.

  Herbert Spencer tore himself away from the tormenting wraith and darted forward. He retrieved the two fallen Choir Stones. As he did so, another one fell.

  The Claimant let loose a terrific shriek and clutched his head.

  “I remember!” he shouted. “I remember!”

  Nelson backed away from his opponent, who once again lurched after him. The sleeves of the Claimant's jacket, and the shirt beneath, hung in tatters. When he raised his hands to grab the rapier, his mismatched forearms were fully exposed. They were terribly lacerated, but the creature appeared to be entirely immune to pain.

  The rapier danced away from the clutching fingers.

  The Claimant roared with frustration.

  Herbert crept up behind him and picked up the third stone, then two more as the fourth and fifth flew from the swollen man's head.

  Swinburne started to shoot spines into the creature's back, hoping that the accumulating venom would at least slow the juggernaut down.

  “I want meat!” the Claimant raged. His face was covered with blood. Every few moments, his tongue snaked from between his lips and licked at the red liquid.

  The sixth diamond dropped.

  Admiral Lord Nelson started to duck and dodge more intently. The remaining stone was located at the back of his opponent's head, so he needed to somehow manoeuvre himself into a position from which it could be extracted.

  As the two combatants moved back and forth over the cobbles, Spencer followed cautiously, slipping the sixth stone into his pocket.

  The clockwork man stepped in close, bent under a lashing fist, sprang forward, whirled, and sent his rapier's tip digging into the remaining fleshy protuberance on the back of his adversary's skull. A small chunk of flesh dropped away. Blood spurted. A black diamond sparkled. It landed at Spencer's feet. He snatched it up. He now had the complete Francois Garnier Collection in his pocket.

  “Aaaaargh!” the Claimant cried. “Hurts! It hurts! Give me meat! I want meat!”

  He turned to face Nelson and backed away a couple of steps, peering through the blood streaming over his eyes.

  His fury seemed to leave him for a moment.

  He blinked.

  Swinburne felt a profound sense of release, as if he was fully himself again. He lowered the spine-shooter and watched.

  “No,” the fat man uttered. “No. I am not-I am not-”

  He lifted the larger of his two hands up to his face.

  “I am not Roger-”

  He dug his blunt fingernails into his forehead and cheeks.

  “I am not Roger Tichborne!”

  With a stomach-churning tearing noise, he ripped his face from the front of his skull and held it out triumphantly.

  “My name is Arthur Orton! And I want meat!”

  He pushed the drooping skin and tissue into his mouth and started to chew.

  “Ah,” Swinburne whispered. “So there we have it at last.”

  Arthur Orton considered Admiral Lord Nelson.

  “You,” he rumbled, “are not meat.”

  His gory countenance, all raw muscle and throbbing veins, turned until he was looking directly at Herbert Spencer.

  “But you-”

  With startling agility for one so gargantuan, Orton lunged at the vagrant philosopher.

  Spencer turned to run.

  Admiral Lord Nelson sprang into action. He took two great strides, raised the rapier, sent it plunging toward the back of Orton's spine, suddenly slowed-and froze.

  The clockwork man had wound down.

  Corpulent fingers closed around Spencer's neck.

  Swinburne started shooting, pressing the trigger nodule again and again.

  “Trounce!” he shrilled. “Your pistol! Your pistol!”

  There was no response. The detective was either out cold or dead.

  Spencer yelled as he was yanked off his feet.

  “Meat!” bellowed Orton triumphantly and sank his teeth into the back of the philosopher's neck. His victim's scream of agony was cut short as vertebrae crunched and shattered, and a gobbet of pulsating flesh was wrenched free.

  Orton twisted Herbert Spencer's head off and threw it to one side. It bounced away across the cobbles. Blood pumped from the severed neck, and the monstrous butcher laughed as it sprayed over his face.

  “No,” Swinburne sobbed. “Oh Jesus, please no.”

  Holding Spencer's twitching corpse with the larger of his hands, Orton plunged the other into the neck, pushing it deep into the body.

  “Aaah,” he sighed, and when he pulled the dripping red arm back out, the philosopher's still-beating heart was gripped in his fingers. He tore it free of stretching arteries and flesh, raised it to his mouth, and licked it.

  “Why won't you fucking die?” Swinburne raged, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  The Claimant turned and regarded the poet. He grinned and chewed on the twitching organ.

  Swinburne raised the cactus gun and, without aiming, touched the trigger nodule.

  Spines sank into Orton's right eye.

  The butcher flinched, shook his head, and waddled slowly toward the tiny man.

  “More meat! I like meat!”

  Swinburne turned to run but suddenly found himself gripped by vaporous hands. Two wraiths had swooped upon him and now, just as they had dragged Sir Alfred Tichborne through Tichborne House to his doom, so they began to pull Swinburne to his.

  “Get off me! Get off me!”

  Orton gave a bloody smile and said: “Come to me. I eat you up!”

  Closer and closer Swinburne was drawn, until the gigantic butcher towered over him, dripping blood onto his flame-red hair.

  “Yum yum,” Orton drawled, through a mouthful of Herbert Spencer's heart.

  He reached out and caught the poet by the lapels. He lifted him into the air. The wraiths floated beside Swinburne, holding his arms, preventing him from using the cactus pistol.

  Orton spat the lump of flesh from his mouth. His lips peeled back from the big green incisor teeth. His jaws opened. He leaned forward, his mouth approaching the poet's skinny neck.

  Swinburne suddenly felt completely calm.

  “Two things,” he said, looking straight into the little piggy eyes. “Firstly, I concede defeat.”

  Orton stopped and regarded the small man.

  “You've won. So why not rein yourself in a little? After all, London is on its knees. The Houses of Parliament are half destroyed. Buckingham Palace is under siege. The working classes are in control. My friends have been beaten into submission or killed. I mean to say, there's no need to dine on an insignificant little poet like me just to prove a point, is there?”

  Orton gave a bubbling chuckle and licked his lips.

  “Meat!” he hissed.

  “Yes,” the poet continued. “I thought you might say
that, which brings me to my second point, which is this: your manners are truly appalling. Have you not read A Manual of Etiquette for Young Ladies?”

  Emitting an animal growl, the Claimant opened his mouth wide and placed his teeth against Swinburne's throat.

  There was a sound- thunk! -and the poet suddenly fell to the ground, the wraiths swirling away from him.

  He looked up.

  Arthur Orton's head was transfixed by a huge African spear, which had pierced his skull above the right ear and exited beneath the left. Blood and grey brain matter oozed from its point.

  The man who'd called himself Roger Tichborne toppled backward, hit the road with a tremendous thud, and lay still.

  Algernon Swinburne sat bemused. Then he looked to his left at number 14 Montagu Place. In the gaping hole where the study window had once been, Sir Richard Francis Burton stood, his Dervish robes fluttering slightly in the breeze.

  “M ay Allah bless thee and grant thee peace,” Al-Masloub murmured.

  “And peace and blessings upon thee,” Burton replied. “You are certain you do not require an escort?”

  “Allah is our escort.”

  “Then I am assured of your safety. Until next time, my friend.”

  Al-Masloub smiled and bowed and he and his fellow musicians departed, slipping into the thickening atmosphere of Montagu Place.

  “You, on the other hand,” Burton said, turning to Mrs. Angell, “most definitely will be escorted.”

  “I should stay, Sir Richard,” his housekeeper protested. “Look at the state of the house! It's a terrible mess!”

  “And one that I shall see to. Your carriage awaits, Mother Angell. A constable will drive you to the station and stay with you on the train all the way to Herne Bay. A few days in a bed and breakfast enjoying some fresh sea air will work wonders on your nerves.”

  “There's nothing wrong with my nerves.”

  “Well, there jolly well ought to be after what you've been through today! Now off with you, and I promise to have this place as good as new by the time you get back.”

  Reluctantly, the old lady descended the front steps, accepted a helping hand from a policeman, and climbed into the brougham parked just in front of the prime minister's mobile castle. With a quick blast of its steam-horse's whistle, the carriage chugged away, heading to the Queen Victoria Memorial Railway Station.