The little girl slowly lifted one hand, balancing on the other. I thought Wally’s cousin Prissy would have appreciated the feat; she planned to join the circus someday herself.
I glanced at Wally to see if he was appreciating the show, but his attention had been captured by something farther down the way. A boy was performing on a monowheel. He maneuvered magnificently, while people threw pennies into a pail.
A “monowheel” is a conveyance that consists of a single large wheel, a seat for the pilot, a drive chain, and a pair of pedals. This monowheel had been modified by the addition a motor. It was two meters tall, with the seat in the center. Most monowheels are completely dependent on the driver’s sense of balance. This one, however, was further modified with a toplike gyroscope suspended over the driver’s head.
The boy stopped directly in front of us and stepped off the machine. The monowheel remained upright without him. He grasped it with one hand and spun it as you might spin a coin on a tabletop, seeming to transform the circle into a sphere.
The crowd rained coins on him, but his brown eyes went from Wally to me. I was studying him as well. His costume had clearly been created from bits and bobs scavenged from trash heaps. None of his buttons matched. Calypso would not have approved of the sloppy stitching.
“You’re them, ain’t you?” he said. “Walter Kennewickett, boy scientist, and ’is dirigible-like dachshund wot saved the world!”
I shuddered at this description. Certain journalists simply refused to believe that Wally had invented a working pair of wings for me. I’d been depicted in multiple publications as a balloon-like creature on a string.
“I read about you in the papers,” the boy went on. “I’m Dobbin. Dobbin Winckles.” He held out a hand encased in a grimy glove with no fingertips. I knew from Wally’s large library of crime fiction that pickpockets preferred gloves of that kind, as they kept their hands warm and their fingers nimble.
“Wally,” Walter said, grasping the gloved hand firmly. I have often noted the instant camaraderie that springs up among certain scientists and inventors. I was not sure what I thought about it springing up between Wally and this fellow.
“Dirigibles are lighter than air, of course,” Wally noted. “Noodles is not.”
Dobbin nodded. “Of course not. ’E’s respectable, ’e is.”
I wagged. Grimy gloves might be forgivable under certain circumstances. This was clearly a boy of keen discernment.
Wally stepped closer to the monowheel. The stroboscopic effect of the spin gave it a ghostlike appearance, but one could clearly see the inner workings.
“Is this your own design? I read of one like it in Scientific American, but you appear to have made modifications!”
“The problem is balance,” Dobbin said. “I’ve added a gyroscope to keep ’er from tipping.”
“And an internal combustion engine, judging from the sound,” Wally said. “My own inventions are mostly electric, and occasionally dachshund-powered. I do work some with explosives, of course.”
“Such as them used for blowing safes?” Dobbin asked. His eyes darted to the rooftops and searched the crowd around us. I wondered what he was looking for.
“Such as those used in art,” Wally clarified.
“Never ’eard of that sort.” Dobbin leaned closer to Wally. “Run, Kennewickett,” he whispered. “Leave London. Tick Tock’s out to nab you.”
Tick Tock!
Fear shot down my spine. My instincts had not gone awry after all. Walter Kennewickett was in danger.
“Who?” Wally asked.
“Dob!” the angel cried from her perch on the plate before Dobbin could reply. “Peelers!”
The word “peelers” apparently applied to the two uniformed officers of the law we had accompanied in the parade. They were making their way toward us.
Dobbin grabbed his monowheel with one gloved hand to stop the spin, then jumped aboard.
“Keep it mum,” he said to Wally. “Tick Tock will kill me if ’e knows I warned you!” Then the crowd scattered as the contraption careered crazily through its midst. A quick glance confirmed that the angel and the giant had made a getaway as well.
One constable set off in pursuit of the monowheel, blowing his whistle and brandishing his billy club, but our Scottish friend stayed.
“Conversing with the riffraff, were you?” Officer Arbuckle asked.
“He seemed like a decent fellow,” Wally said.
The constable pushed his hat back. “If you mean decent at pickpocketing and acts of light larceny, I’d agree.”
“Larceny” is taking someone else’s property without permission. I was disturbed to learn that Dobbin would do such a thing, but I had to admit his comment about blowing up safes had been a clue that he might not be entirely on the up-and-up.
“That lot indulges in arson and occasional kidnapping,” Officer Arbuckle confided. “I’ve never known them to burn a building down with anyone inside, so I could say there are worse. I don’t suppose they have such characters as him in Gasket Gully.” He looked around. “Did your aunt just leave you here?”
“We were to meet in an hour,” Wally explained. “And if she doesn’t return, I’m to walk home.”
“I’ll walk with you a bit, if it’s along my beat,” Officer Arbuckle said. “I’m going to the other side of Trafalgar Square before I turn.”
“It is along our way,” Wally admitted.
I, for one, was glad of the constable’s company.
“You’ve got to be careful in London Town, laddie,” he said as we left the bright lights of the Embankment. “A genteel thing like Miss Rhodope might not realize it, but we’ve got Spring-Heeled Jack on our rooftops, thieves in the streets, and sewer swine below.”
“Sewer swine?”
I was glad Wally asked. I had heard of Spring-Heeled Jack, of course. He had been in all the papers of late. The rotten rogue ran across rooftops and could leap incredible distances. This might have been considered an eccentric hobby if he hadn’t taken to dropping into the street and snatching purses or pocket watches from the unsuspecting before he bounced away again. I had never, however, heard of sewer swine.
“They keep that one hush-hush. Some people don’t even believe in the beasts,” the constable said, stopping to tap on a grimy basement window with his billy club. “Wake up, Charlie,” he called. “You’ve got to be at work at nine!”
“I’m awake, I’m awake,” a voice grumbled inside.
“Our knocker-upper is visiting his old mum,” Artemis Arbuckle explained as he stepped back to the street. “I told him I’d rouse those that work the night shift. I take care of this neighborhood, as you can see. Walk the rounds all night.”
A “knocker-upper’s” job is to wake people so that they get to work on time.
Rhodope has photographs of lamplighters, chimney sweeps, and knocker-uppers in her rooms. A map on her wall shows the location where each picture was taken.
“Do you believe in sewer swine?” Wally asked as we started across the square.
“I do,” the officer said. “They say that years and years ago, a sow in young washed down a drain in Hampstead. She proceeded to have her piglets in the sewers, where they fed on garbage and rats. The porkers multiplied exceedingly, and adapted, as Mr. Darwin might say. They’re all white now, with razor-sharp teeth, and as ferocious as any animal in the wild.”
“But has their existence actually been documented?” Wally asked.
“Ah, you’re the skeptical sort, I see. Comes of having scientific parents, I suppose. It’s true that some folks don’t believe in them. But I’ve heard their ghastly grunting through the drains, and that is as close as I ever hope to get. I want nothing to do with dark deeds beneath the streets.”
I eyed the lock on the sewer grate we just happened to be passing, and silently agreed with Officer Arbuckle. Nothing on earth could induce me to venture into such a place.
“Have you ever heard of a criminal called Tick
Tock?” Wally asked.
“Murder and mahem!” Constable Arbuckle cried. “Of course I have. Feared by criminals and police alike, he is.” He gave Wally a rather keen look. “What brought his name to mind just now?”
“I’d rather not say, sir,” Wally admitted.
Artemis Arbuckle swung his billy club thoughtfully.
“I was curious about criminals myself as a lad,” he said. “But Tick Tock is another sort entirely. Every officer dreams of apprehending him, and every officer fears meeting him in the dark.”
“But who is he, sir?” Wally asked.
“A shadow, a scream, a nightmare,” Officer Arbuckle said with a sigh. “And one you nowise want to meet. They say Tick Tock’s father was a tosher—a person who dug amongst the muck in the sewers in those days, searching for coins and jewels and watches that had washed down. He raised two sons in the tosher trade. When that line of work was outlawed, one of them became a very fine watchmaker and the other a very foul criminal.”
“Tick Tock was the watchmaker, then?”
“He was the criminal,” the constable corrected. “They called him Tick Tock because he had a clockwork heart. His brother made it for him, you see, after a bullet nicked his God-given ticker during the commission of a crime.”
“What does Mr. Tick Tock look like?” Wally asked, and I knew that he was thinking the same thing I was thinking—like an old man in a tattered coat, an old man who sounded like clockwork.
“Nobody’s ever seen him,” Officer Arbuckle said, “not and lived to tell the tale. But that’s one you don’t need to worry about. His brother died five years ago, and they say Tick Tock followed him away. His ticker stopped, that’s what I think, with his brother not around to fix it. At any rate, he’s gone and we’re glad of it. My beat is this way.” He pointed down a dark street.
“Auntie’s rooms are the other way,” Wally said.
I woofed agreement.
“Take care,” the constable said. “It’s a good night to be inside. We’ll have fog by morning, see if we don’t. Give your aunt my regards!”
“What do you think, Noodles?” Wally asked as he followed me up the street. “Have we seen the Tick-Tock Man and lived to tell? Our gentleman looked a little old to be nabbing people, though.” He stopped, and his hand went to his camera. “We didn’t just see him. We may have a photograph of him!”
I grabbed the cuff of Wally’s pants and pulled to start him on his way again. Rhodope would never have left us alone if she had heard Dobbin’s warning. It goes without saying that Oliver and Calypso would not approve of their son wandering the streets under such circumstances. It was my job to get him home as quickly as possible.
“I’m coming,” Wally said.
I turned my olfactory apparatus toward the scent of sausage, glancing back every now and then to make sure Wally was still behind me.
We’d just rounded the corner toward jasmine tea and orchids when I heard it.
Tick-tock.
“Noodles,” Wally whispered, “I believe we are being followed.”
I walked a little faster. As Wally’s friend, I had faced my fair share of danger. But being followed through the night by a criminal with a clockwork heart unsettled even me.
Tick-tock.
“Run!” Wally shouted, and I ran, making sure I did not lose him as I led the way.
The terrible tick-tock of the clockwork heart drew closer as we pelted around the corner toward the shop that sold pastries. We dodged a horse-drawn cart as we crossed the street.
Suddenly, there was the sound of a scuffle behind us, and a sharp cry. We whirled in time to see something tossed into the cart. The driver leaped aboard, a whip cracked over the poor horse’s ears, and the conveyance clattered away.
The street was still.
“What on earth is going on, Noodles?” Wally wondered aloud.
I had no answers.
We reached Aunt Rhodope’s address without further incident and found her landlady, Mrs. Wiggins, waiting.
“Miss Pickering called ages ago to say she would be coming in quite late,” the woman said, giving me a disapproving look. I suspected that she did not like dachshunds. “A cold supper is waiting upstairs. And just because Miss is out doesn’t mean you can go jumping about in her rooms. This is a respectable house!”
“Thank you, Mrs. Wiggins,” Wally said as we started up. “We wouldn’t dream of jumping about.”
I was certain she did not like dachshunds when I discovered she had left only one covered plate on the table, and it contained just a single ham sandwich. We had finished the fish and chips over an hour ago, and there is always room for a bit of ham.
“You eat, Noodles,” Wally said as he divided the sandwich in half. Walter Kennewickett is a very thoughtful boy. “I am going to develop my film.” He set the sandwich before me.
Rhodope had shown him how to use her excellent darkroom the day we arrived, but my nose was too sensitive for the chemical baths the negatives and prints were subjected to.
I devoured my half of the ham sandwich in two bites and watched Wally’s half while he worked.
“I’ve got him!” Wally announced after he’d developed the negatives. “We’ll have to see how it prints, though.”
I was sure the bread was stale by the time he hung the prints to dry, but he didn’t seem to care.
“It’s an excellent image,” he said around a mouthful. “Aunt Rhodope will not believe who we have captured on film!”
After he finished his meal, he washed his hands and brought out the photographic prints for inspection. He held one up, and I observed an angular face, hawklike nose, and deep-set eyes. I instantly knew that the feeble old fellow we thought we had seen was just an act. Every line of this lean body bespoke power.
Run, Kennewickett. Dobbin’s warning echoed in my ears.
I knew that I could not possibly sleep until Rhodope arrived. Wally looked longingly at the array of explosive powders he had arranged on the desk his aunt was letting him use, then sighed and picked up Sir Arthur’s new novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and settled into a chair.
I may have mentioned that Walter Kennewickett is a scientist in training. He is fascinated by the similarities between scientific research and the work of a detective. Both scientific experimentation and crime solving depend on the ability to form a hypothesis.
A “hypothesis” is a guess. If you pay close attention to the clues, it can be a very good guess. Still, it is no more than a starting point for further investigation. When Sir Arthur’s detective solves a crime, he forms hypotheses and tests them until he finds the facts behind the case.
“Why would Tick Tock want to nab me?” Wally wondered, lowering the book. His mind was clearly not consumed by the mystery of the hound. “And . . . what happened to him?”
At that moment someone knocked on the door. I shuddered, suddenly sure Tick Tock had found us. But Wally ran to open it before I could stop him. We found Mrs. Wiggins in her evening cap and robe. She was holding a grease-stained envelope as one might hold a recently deceased mouse.
“A note for Mr. Kennewickett,” she said.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Wally said, taking it from her. She stalked away to her own room.
I expected it to be a message from Rhodope, but I was wrong.
The missive, hastily penned on a piece of butcher paper, read: “NEED HELP. Come to the courtyard behind Chopin’s Pub at Bow and Kemble at midnight. It is a matter of LIFE AND DEATH. You must come alone. NO PEELERS.” And it was signed “D. Winckles.”
“Winckles,” Wally said, and began to pace. “The boy with the monowheel. Something is amiss, Noodles.” He stopped on the opposite side of the room and spun around to consult the map on Rhodope’s wall.
“I estimate it will take twenty minutes to get to the courtyard,” Wally said. “Ten if we run. We’ll wait for Aunt Rhodope.”
At eleven thirty Wally read the note again. His finger tapped twice on LIFE AND DEA
TH.
“What would Father suggest if he were here?” he asked, and started to pace again.
I strained my ears, hoping to hear Rhodope’s tread.
At eleven forty he stopped and stood very still. “I don’t know what Father would suggest in the current situation,” he said. “But I know what he would do, Noodles. Someone needs help.”
I was afraid he was correct. A Kennewickett never turns away from someone needing help.
Wally tore a page from his notebook and wrote a quick account of the mysterious warning about Tick Tock, along with a request that a wire be sent to his parents. He ended the message with “Gone to render assistance.”
I thought it was an excellent idea to wire Oliver and Calypso. I had a hypothesis as to why D. Winckles’s life might be in danger.
Wally left the page along with the note from D. Winckles on the table for his aunt Rhodope to find.
Then he took a bit of string and a candle stub from a drawer and scooped up a tin of Oliver’s Delightful, Dependable, and Safe Matches and two Coruscating Cannonades. They were the last pocket pyrotechnic Wally had finished before his parents had left.
To “coruscate” is to flash and sparkle.
A “cannonade” is the continuous roar of many guns.
The Coruscating Cannonade was one of Calypso’s favorite pyrotechnics.
Wally looked around one last time, and then we tiptoed past Mrs. Wiggins’s bedroom and crept down the stairs. The quarter bells in the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster were chiming as we came out the door.
The well-lit streets of Charing Cross were surprisingly busy even at this time of night, but everything changed as soon as we turned from the main street. The electric lamps were gone, replaced by gas lamps that flickered as their wicks died, making our shadows jump first behind us, then before us as we passed each post.
The Tick-Tock Man Page 2