Imperial Clock (The Steam Clock Legacy)

by Appleton, Robert

  “What is it?” She switched seats to be next to him. Poor lad was whiter than a sheet.

  “Everything all right, William?” Simeon called back, having seen him in his rear-view. “If I was you, I wouldn’t even look.”

  “Just...hurry along will you, Tan—I mean Simeon.” William thumped a fist against the panel under his window, whumping the metal. “God, I should be over this by now.”

  “It’s been a while since you’ve been so close, lad. I’m a little jittery myself.”

  “Wait a minute. You two—” In Sonja’s darting gaze, a theory. A rifling theory. Behind her pursed lips, words that were dying to form, the same words on the tip of Meredith’s tongue. “You were about to call him Tangeni, weren’t you?”

  Meredith clicked her finger. “Yes, just like you did that night in Niflheim. The name seemed familiar at the time, but now—”

  “Then falling queasy opposite Reardon’s factory like this,” Sonja took over the reasoning, to Meredith’s delight—they were clearly on the same wavelength this evening, “and you’re seventeen, exactly the right age for the boy who returned from prehistory. Agnes Polperro identified a young lad named Billy Ransdell in her official testimony, said he and several African aeronauts survived the return time jump with her, but they must have fled London because no trace was found.”

  William stared at the floor.

  “It is him. The dinosaur boy.” Meredith and Sonja shook hands, congratulated each other on their historic deduction.

  “And Tangeni, first officer of the Empress Matilda,” Sonja observed as she hopped up to kneel on the seat and peer into the driver’s cabin. “Did you know they wrote an entire series of adventure books based on you and Captain Verity Champlain? The Lady Skyhawk Chronicles. I’ve got ‘em all. Tell me, what was she like?”

  After a sharp glance in his rear-view, Tangeni opened the secondary steam valve for acceleration, producing a heavy sloshing sound in the engine belly behind the carriage, followed by several splitting hisses from the exhausts high on either side of the roof. “Your father warned us not to tell you too much. He said you were incorrigibly curious.” He snatched his flat cap off his head and slammed it onto the empty passenger seat. His fuzzy greying hair was close-cropped at the back and sides but quite thick on top, as if the barber hadn’t finished. “But I clearly won’t get a moment’s peace, will I?”

  “Not a nanosecond’s. Not until you spill everything, Mr. Early Cretaceous Aeronaut.” Sonja reached in and tried to ruffle his unrufflable hair. “Eww...woolly.”

  He laughed and slowly shook his head. “McEwans.”

  “So where does Father fit in with all this?” Meredith asked. “He arranged to meet you at the Steam Fair—why?”

  “We’ve been helping to organise his expedition. My contacts in Africa and your father’s contacts here in England prefer to keep their correspondence away from, how shall we say it, certain intercepting parties.”

  “You mean the Leviacrum.” Sonja tapped her fingers on his seatback, then rolled her eyes at the ensuing silence. “Tangeni, our father dug up Subterranea. McEwans don’t exactly use a bucket and spade to unearth secrets. Do us a favour, please don’t be patronizing.”

  He scratched his beard. “Understand there’s only so much we’re allowed to say, miss.”

  “Hmm, put it this way—” Sonja was in rare uncompromising form this evening, “—whatever you omit, we’ll only inquire about later, and maybe the wrong people will get to know we’re asking the right questions, and that—that will be on your heads, Billy Ransdell and Tangeni. I doubt Father would look too favourably on you should that happen. Besides, besides...” She winked at Meredith, “Father told us more than you think.”

  “Yes, a darn sight more.”

  Tangeni made an irritable sucking noise behind his overabundance of clenched ivory teeth.

  “So for starters, it would behove you to tell us who the ringleader was today. The comatose peeping tom we clocked in Niflheim. What in God’s name was he doing in London when you nincompoops were supposed to warn us if he woke up. Well?” Sonja had a good point.

  “Name’s Westerfeld, a mercenary. Used to be a war correspondent, Asian-Pacific mostly.” Though he was slouched sulkily against the side of the carriage, almost prone, William managed to keep one eye on Meredith. She liked that. It gave him an air of mystery, not that she knew who the deuce he was any more. “Apparently someone smuggled him out of hospital weeks ago, and threatened the staff into silence. We only found out he’d left Norway today when you two recognised him. Professor Sorensen confirmed it by telephone when we were at the police station. So yes, we’re fighting an unseen enemy right now—whoever hired this bastard. Your dad was right to clear out when he did, to keep on the move. Once he starts his tunnelling, there’ll be no one can touch him for the next year or so.”

  “Well, well, look who’s a regular Wilkie Collins.” Sonja’s attempt to regain control of the conversation. A little too on the nose.

  “And look who’s patronizing who now,” he replied.

  Smiling, she slid down off her knees and switched to the seat opposite him. “Dinosaur Boy, give us your dinosaur tale.”

  He groaned. “Which one?”

  “How about...” She paused while Meredith took her own seat, “you start from the beginning. The only version of the story we’ve heard is that vile Agnes Polperro’s.”

  “The Gorgon.”

  “Uh-huh. And we’d love to hear what really happened in prehistory. Garrett Embrey, Verity Champlain, Professor Reardon, the diving bell, the miraculous spider. What was this book you had with you, that made you think of the Cretaceous in the first place?”

  “Tangeni?” William sat up as he asked for permission.

  A long pause, followed by a longer sigh from the driver’s cabin. “If you must.”

  “All right then. You asked for it, both of you.” He glanced sideways, soliciting a reaction from Meredith. Not forthcoming. Not until he stopped hinting at his part in all this and said something of note. “Well, it were sheeting down that September night, nineteen oh eight, and my dad was driving us across Westminster Bridge...”

  In frank, exhaustive detail he described his extraordinary adventure in the Cretaceous: the different dinosaur species they’d encountered; his burgeoning friendships with Tangeni, Embrey and particularly Professor Reardon; the senseless squabbling within the group of survivors, leading to violent mutiny; the desperate countdown to Reardon’s gambled return time jump; William’s guilt at having manifested the Cretaceous through his own panicked mind, a bizarre side-effect of human time travel, and also at having to leave Embrey and Verity behind. So vivid were his recollections that Meredith scarcely drew breath the entire time, and when they finally sighted the Ferris Wheel on Southsea’s Clarence Pier, moments before the conclusion of the tale, Tangeni had stopped to re-fill the water boiler and re-stoke the engine on at least five occasions during the course of the journey.

  “Amazing.” Sonja pressed the toe of her shoe to his knee, perhaps to flirt a little, perhaps to make sure he was real. “And now I see where our stories intersect.”

  “Our stories?” he queried.

  “Mm, regarding the crumbling towers you happened upon in prehistory—the Leviacrum towers. And what that means for Meredith and I, for our legacy.”

  “You’re speaking of your mother?” Tangeni called out.

  “How much do you two know about her?” It appalled Meredith to think that Father had made these strangers privy to their family heritage before he’d told her and Sonja. But only for a moment. The silence allowed her to clarify her thoughts. It was now quite clear, this circle of colleagues, including the two men present, Professor Sorensen, and Sir Horace Holly whom Father had lectured alongside many times over the years: this clique knew things no one else could be allowed to know, dangerous things, subversive things, unequivocal things, and that she was hearing even a few of them here was both a privilege and an ine
xorable challenge to her character. For she could never un-learn what she’d learned in the past few days, nor could she share any of this to a living soul outside this particular circle.

  She gasped, thought of her own private investigation, the book waiting for her at home.

  “We know only what you know,” Tangeni replied. “Your father told us he played you her projected message. So the answer to your question is yes, Miss Sonja, the prehistoric towers do appear to be linked to the subterranean civilization from which your mother emerged. That riddle is in your father’s hands, God willing. But we must look to today’s events, and your own safety. Rest assured, William and I will stop at nothing to learn who hired Westerfeld and his scum, and why. In two days’ time we must return to London, but you have relatives at hand, I understand.”

  “Yes, Aunt Lily, when she’s at home, that is,” Sonja answered.

  “I will hire a chaperon for you,” he said. “Be sure to mind his advice.”

  Meredith touched shoes with Sonja across the carriage, a classic, tacit vow of rebellion against anyone foolish enough to try to control them, often made under the dinner table: nannies, governesses, home tutors, and a babysitting constable named Gabe had failed that task spectacularly over the years. With a little help, of course.

  And anyway, Father owned a collection of rare steam-pistols bequeathed to him from a scientific colleague in Morocco, heavy, nickel-plated things both she and Sonja knew how to work. Well, in theory. They’d shot an empty china vase to smithereens once—at point blank range in the back garden.

  But for one or two airship lanterns roaming the heavens like elegant drifting stars, and the town streetlamps’ dim glow beyond the forest on Southsea front, the night was unimaginably cold and lifeless. All along Bitker Lane the wheel-grooved mud had hardened and the puddles frosted over, so the buggy’s heavy-set wheels crunched along the track. Even the Van Persies had turned in—no light in their cottage across the lane—and Meredith couldn’t remember the last time she’d returned home this late.

  Father’s tubular trailer was gone from the garden; likely he’d had one of his expedition lackeys load the last of his supplies in a hurry and drive them to Portsmouth harbour, for immediate transport by boat or airship to some foreign port, away from prying eyes.

  No sooner had they started up the gravel path when Sonja halted, shushed them, and whispered, “Tangeni, William, look lively now, but be quiet. There’s someone in the house.”

  “Where?” William set his valise down with extreme care. “I don’t see anything.”

  “A lamp light. It moved across the landing. I saw it through two sets of curtains, then—there, do you see? On the stairs?”

  “I see it.” Meredith inched beside her younger sister, and Sonja took her by the arm while they watched. “Definitely an oil lamp. Whoever it is isn’t in a hurry, though; he’s creeping down those steps. Mustn’t have seen us.”

  Tangeni fetched two sidearms apiece from the buggy for himself and William. By the glow of his pocket dynamo lamp he clicked the water and acid cylinders into place, rechecked the magazines. “You ladies keep your distance. Best if you climb back in the carriage. This won’t—”

  “Not on your life.” First Sonja, then Meredith snatched a pistol from him, and before he could protest they were half way up the lawn. Meredith focused on Sonja’s stiff crouching dash ahead, as powerful and un-feline a scurry as she’d ever seen. Whatever they were up to, they were doing it together; that was all that mattered. But damn it, the others had best be right behind them.

  “False alarm.” Sonja peered through the vestibule window, and after swapping pistol for key, flung the front door open. “What are you doing here?”

  “A fine greeting, I must say,” a familiar female voice called from the hall.

  “A fine time to be greeted, I must say.”

  “Lady Catarina?” To Meredith’s surprise, the elegant socialite was dressed in a nightie and dressing gown. Her hair flowed down to her hips.

  “All this to-do. Your Aunt Lily telephoned me earlier and invited me to spend the night, to keep you both company until she arrives. She thought it improper for two young ladies to share a house with two strange men without a female chaperone. I assure you it’s nothing more sinister than that. And certainly no offence intended, Mr. Elgin, Simeon.”

  “None taken, ma’am,” both men agreed, accepting her invitation to enter.

  “Well, we’re glad to see you again and all but—isn’t this a bit unnecessary?” Sonja wiped her feet on the mat. “I thought we were in the twentieth century, not the Dark Ages.”

  Lady Catarina tutted. “Propriety is propriety.”

  “Quite right, Cathy...I mean Lady Catarina.” Tangeni gave her a wink, which she returned, to Meredith’s surprise.

  “And you two know each other how?” Sonja snatched Tangeni’s dynamo torch off him and shone it under his chin. They all chuckled at the cross-eyed faces he pulled.

  “Oh, we’ve known each other for several years,” Lady Catarina explained, “through Professor Sorensen and your father. Simeon—”

  “Tangeni,” Meredith corrected her. “We know who they really are.”

  “Very well. Tangeni tells the most amazing stories of his time in the Air Corps. Apparently he met Quatermain once.”

  “Aye, he gave me one of his rifle cartridges—an eight bore—in exchange for my water canteen. Best sale I ever made. But now—” He seemed eager to change the subject as he guided Sonja’s light, still in her grip, toward the chronometer clock, “—it’s time we turned in. Right, Cathy?”

  “Absolutely. You ladies have had a most trying day. To bed with you.” Charming though it was, and she was utterly charming, Lady Catarina’s playful command didn’t sit right with Meredith. Under Mother’s portrait, in Father’s house—indeed Meredith’s house while he was away—this prim interloper calling the shots fell the wrong side of meddlesome. Meredith was seventeen, a lady in all but squares on a calendar. She didn’t need anyone ordering her about under her own roof.

  “I’m not ready for bed yet. I’m going to read awhile. But the four of you must turn in.”

  “Merry?” Sonja dazzled her with the dynamo light.

  Meredith walked away to the study without another word, removed her coat and shoes and sat at Father’s desk. The careful footsteps and hushed conversation continued upstairs while she retrieved her notebook and her copy of Shadow Players: A Study of Esoteric Societies and Modern Conspiracies from the locked bottom drawer, which only she had the key for.

  She wrote the name Westerfeld on the next blank page of her notebook. Somehow, despite the barrage of happenings and the new information she’d learned today, that was the only fresh lead she could really include as part of her investigation. The owner of the mysterious pocket watch Sonja had found in Sorensen’s garden. So he was a mercenary, almost certainly Leviacrum, and formerly an Asian-Pacific war correspondent. She could try the newspaper archives in the London Central Library, maybe the Union of Empirical Press building, to find out more about him, perhaps whom he was affiliated with, which topics particularly outraged him: clues as to why he would want Father dead, or who might have hired him.

  And lastly, why a man like that was given to possess an object of such esoteric nature.

  She pivoted the pocket watch under the light of the table lamp, fingering its seamless edges, its unmovable winder, the pictorial engraving, the Latin words: exitus acta probat.

  “What the devil are you?”

  According to the French volume, the eight original Atlas Club members, whose real identities had never been proven, each presided over a sect of no more than thirty-six followers. Each sect met in secret at a specified time on a designated date singular to the sect. For example, one group would gather on the first of the month at one o’clock, another on the second at two, and so on, all the way up to the eighth of the month at eight o’clock (presumably post meridian). It was called ‘The Rule of Eight’.
Father had let that phrase slip the day he’d projected mother’s posthumous message, and had told Meredith not to pursue it—it was too dangerous a topic for little girls.

  Poppycock. Was it better to bury her head in the sand, pretend nothing was happening, that no one was baying for McEwan blood? Or was it her right as a free-thinking woman to learn the truth? Maybe to the rest of Britain, under the unspoken yoke of Leviacrum rule, ostrichdom was the safer bet; but she’d never been taught the virtue of sand; long necks should be used to look beyond danger.

  “Each member is said to be equipped with an instrument, unique to the number of his sect, for gaining entry to his meeting place on the allotted day. It is small enough to carry in one’s pocket, and inconspicuous enough for him to carry on his person at all times in case of emergency, or for identification among fellow members. Its protective case will bear both the Atlas insignia and its owner’s individual membership number.”

  Meredith breathed on the back of the pocket watch and polished the smooth metal with her sleeve. Number 826. If that signified his sect number then Westerfeld would meet his twenty-five fellow members on the eighth day of every month at 8pm. But where? How could she possibly find that out? And even if she could, how in the blazes was she supposed to open this infuriating casing without taking a hammer to it and possibly smashing the valuable item inside?

  The book went on at some length about the political and industrial subterfuge practiced by the Atlas Club and its vast network of “familiars”—those who did its members’ bidding but weren’t yet members themselves. The Rule of Eight was inviolate, its structure inflexible; maybe the familiars were on the waiting list to replace a member who died or was “expelled” for whatever reason. That none had ever gone public with his or her affiliation with the sect suggested a frighteningly tyrannical authority that bound them with secrecy, and perhaps demonstrated the fatal nature of any “expulsion”.