by Tom Hourie
A half hour later we were in front of a red brick building sandwiched between a pawn shop and a used clothing store. Peeling gold letters over the door read simply ‘Salamander and Sons. Scientific Apparatus since 1877.’
The shop’s mullioned windows were protected by a heavy iron grate which had once been collapsible, but was now rusted in place. The only item on display was a mannequin wearing a deep sea diving suit topped with a bulbous copper helmet.
A tinkling bell rang somewhere inside when we opened the door. We found ourselves in a long, narrow shop whose walls were lined with bookshelves and shadowy, glass-cased displays of everything from microscopes to something called a Patho-Neurometer.
I was examining this latter device which seemed to consist mainly of two copper electrodes attached to a voltmeter by flexible cables when the worn hardwood floorboards creaked beside me.
“The gentleman has an eye for unusual instruments,” said a spindly man, whose rimless spectacles shimmered like the windows of an abandoned house.
“What does this do?” I asked.
“The device measures galvanic skin response. The manufacturer claims it can evaluate a subject’s mental state by assessing the electrical conductivity of his or her skin. I cannot say whether or not the claim is true.”
“So you didn’t make this yourselves?”
“Oh heavens no. We are merely distributors, not a manufacturing facility.”
“Well then,” I said, placing the dimensional translator on the display case. “Perhaps you can tell me who made this or, even better, who bought it.”
“Now this is an item I never thought to see again,” the man said, running his fingers along the translator’s rosewood case. “Dare I say it, ours is a relatively humdrum enterprise. We serve a small clientele whose needs seldom change. But this instrument was something out of the ordinary. I would love to know the story behind it.”
“So it was custom built?”
“Indeed it was, and to very exacting requirements. The customer provided the electrical components, along with highly detailed specifications and drawings.”
“Who was the customer?”
“Alas, I cannot tell you. No invoices were sent. The gentleman paid in cash.”
“You say the buyer supplied the electrical components. What else needed to be done?”
“The clockwork requirements were demanding. The gentleman said he didn’t think a normal clockmaker would be able to meet the necessary tolerances.”
“But you were able to provide someone for the job?”
“Of course,” the man said, drawing his emaciated frame erect. “We at Salamander’s pride ourselves in our many connections among London’s craftsmen.”
“Do you think you might come up with the name of the person who worked on this? For your usual fee, of course.”
“Normally I would say no. Our clients expect discretion. But I suppose we could make an exception since you already possess the item.”
Chapter XXVI:
Cockspur Court – Grenville’s story
We spent the next fifteen minutes cooling our heels in Salamander’s shop while he looked through his files in the back room. The sounds of wooden file cabinet drawers opening and closing were slow and deliberate at first but became more insistent after a few minutes had passed.
“This really is most embarrassing,” Salamander said when he reappeared. “I simply cannot put my hands on the file. You might almost think it had been stolen.” He allowed himself a rueful grin at the very notion that someone would do such a thing. “I did, however retrieve a copy of the original drawings which may be of some help to you.”
We spread the drawings on the dashboard of Schrödinger’s van and marveled at the complexity of the clockwork mechanism they detailed. Max the Cat did his best to help by walking over the drawings while purring and nuzzling Sarah’s cheek.
“Seems like you’ve made a friend,” I said.
“He’s a precious little snuggums,” Sarah said, scratching behind the cat’s ears. “But he really must get down now,” she continued, putting the protesting animal on the floor. “We’ve business to take care of.”
Each of the drawings was a work of art, hand lettered in India ink without a single erasure or correction. The only exception was one of the title blocks where someone had written and partially erased something in pencil. I felt sure it was not Geo. Grenville, the draughtsman, whose pride in his work was evident in every pen stroke.
“Can you read this?” I said, showing the erasure to Sarah. I don’t have my glasses with me.”
Sarah held the drawing to the light. “I believe it is an address,” she said finally. “
Thirty-Four Cockspur Court if I am right.” I spent the next hour maneuvering the caravan through narrow, twisting streets filled with carriages and delivery wagons. I couldn’t decide which was worse, the loose-bowelled horses or the soot-belching steam engines. I finally came down on the side of the engines. You could close the windows and keep out most of the soot but there was no escaping the all-pervasive smell of manure.
Sarah’s directions led us to a dead end street off
Trafalgar Square. Number thirty four was a neo classical building whose red brick entrance sported a carved frieze over a door protected by thick brass grill work. Sarah stayed in the van while I went to examine a bank of bell-pulls next to the doorway that offered choices ranging from ‘Fetty and Rudd, Wine Merchants’ to ‘Lorenzo Niles, Phrenologist.’ I was carrying the drawings and opened them for lack of anything better to do, but saw no references to alcohol or head bumps. “You lot looking for the watchmaker then?” said an adolescent voice behind me. I turned and saw the grimy face of one of London’s many street sweepers. “Them pictures, they look like a watch,” he said, nodding at the drawings.
“Yes I am. Do you know where he works?”
“I might do. Cost you a bob.”
I found a shilling in my pocket and handed it over to the urchin who bit it with crooked teeth. Satisfied, he put it in his pocket and nodded to an alley next to the building. “Around the side, ain’t he,” he said. “But he ain’t there.”
“How do you know?”
“The Old Bill came and took ‘im away yesterday. Sumfink to do with them bombs the strikers been setting off.”
“Did anyone else work with him?”
“No but you might try ‘is friend what made that picture.”
“You mean this drawing?”
“I don’t see no other pictures, do I? Bloke has a shop next street over.”
“If you making inquiries about poor Ivan on behalf of the authorities, I must refer you to my solicitor,” George Grenville said when we tracked him down to his shop on
Kennard Road. I assured him that while we were interested in the clockmaker, we had no official connection. He seemed dubious until he noticed Sarah surreptitiously checking the time on her pocket watch.
“May I see your timepiece?” he asked, extending his ink stained fingers. “I thought so,” he said, after examining the watch closely through rimless half glasses. “This is one of Ivan’s early creations. You can tell by the Cyrillic lettering near the hinge. He switched to the Roman Alphabet only a few years after he came to this country. He thought it would help him fit in.”
“How did you become friends?” I asked. “A draughtsman and a clockmaker. It seems unusual.”
“Ivan sometimes sent work my way and we got to know each other,” Grenville said. “And to call Ivan Mezgin a clockmaker is akin to describing Sir Henry Irving as a mummer. If they send him back to Russia, Britain will lose its finest horlogist.”
“Who wants to send him back to Russia and why?”
“Our so-called intelligence service. They claim he made timers for the bombs the laborites are alleged to have detonated. As if Ivan would waste his talents on such a shoddy undertaking. As to why? It is my feeling they need a scapegoat and Ivan’s foreign status makes him an easy target.”
“What did you mean when you said the bombs the laborites are ‘alleged’ to have set?”
“I know people in the labor movement and they have no idea who might have committed such acts of violence.” His bright eyes looked at me suspiciously from their lair beneath his green celluloid eyeshade. “If you are not with the authorities, what do you want with poor Ivan?”
“I think you may have created these for him,” I said, opening the drawings. “Could you take a moment to look at them?”
“No need,” he said, waving dismissively. “I remember them well. A most unusual assignment, if I may say.”
“Can you tell me who commissioned the work?”
“No, I cannot. All communication was through Ivan.”
“And Ivan paid you?”
“In cash, minus his finder’s fee of course. Although now you mention it, I did receive a bank draft for a supplementary drawing I did of one of the components. There was no letter attached so I always assumed it came from Ivan.”
“Do you have a record of it?”
“I may do, if you will just give me a moment.” He went to a bank of oak filing cabinets and opened a drawer. “Here it is,” he said, pulling out a sheet of paper. “£5-15s payable by Smethings & Sharp. But this is peculiar. I hadn’t noticed before, but the branch in question is located at Totnes in Devon. I cannot think what Ivan might have been doing there.”
Sarah and I looked at each other. “I think it’s time we paid a visit to your alma mater,” I said.
Chapter XXVII:
On the Road – More About Sarah
Another advantage of steam power is that, in a pinch, almost anything combustible can serve as fuel. Good thing, because the route from London to Worthing-By-The-Sea is not over supplied with roadside collieries.
You name it I burned it - wood, paper, oily rags, once even a pile of dried horse manure. Some fuels didn’t work as well as others (the road apples were an experiment I was not likely to repeat) but the Schrödinger’s van just kept chugging along. I even chose a name for our clanking carriage - the MaxMobile, after our feline companion. OK, so it isn’t great, but the Orange Blossom Special was already taken.
I tried to strike up a conversation once we had cleared town, but it wasn’t easy. I couldn’t ask Sarah about her work, she didn’t have any. Favorite TV shows was out for obvious reasons. An inquiry about what she liked to read elicited only a grunted “never enough time.”
It wasn’t until I asked about her old school that she showed signs of life. Her feelings about Bishop Jewel were an odd mixture of gratitude and resentment. Gratitude for providing her with a better education than most of her peers, and resentment at being unable to apply her education because of her sex.
“Have you studied anything since?” I asked.
“I took a six-month course in practical nursing at the Florence Nightingale Institute when it appeared there might be war with Germany, but I have never had a chance to apply it.”
“There doesn’t have to be a war for you to practice nursing.”
“Being a man, you obviously have no understanding of what it means to be patronized by an inept physician whose only real qualification is his sex.”
“You know,” I said, “I really wish you’d ease up on the ‘you men’ stuff. You complain that men are always putting you down, but that doesn’t seem to stop you from doing the same thing to me.”
“I apologize,” she said. “But you must admit you have an advantage. At least you have a voice in what goes on in the world.”
“Are you talking about the vote? If you want it, you can have mine. I haven’t voted in years.”
“I am appalled.”
“When it comes to politics, I’m with Will Rogers. Each party is worse than the other and the one that's out always looks best.”
Things loosened up a bit after that. I told her about sleep research and she told me about her coming out season which had left her with the conclusion she was likely to remain a spinster since the men she met were “a parcel of braying buffoons forever bragging about their golf scores while consuming too many gins and tonic.”
It was late afternoon by the time we reached Worthing-By-The-Sea. Bishop Jewel School for Girls was located in a sprawling red-brick manor house on the outskirts of town. There were a few weeds poking through its graveled driveway and the wood frames of its arched windows could have used a coat of paint, but overall, it appeared prosperous.
“Where are all the students?” I asked, as we puffed our way through the empty grounds toward the turreted front entrance.
“It is almost five thirty,” Sarah said. “They’ll be at chapel. I suggest you wait here while I speak with Miss Trelawney.”
Chapter XXVIII:
Bishop Jewel
“You always were a most unconventional girl. Fancy, traipsing around the countryside like a gypsy,” said the woman standing next to Sarah. She was a typical headmistress at first glance, hair in a spiral bun, glasses on a chain, but there was something about her that said she was nobody’s fool. Maybe it was the unusual pink shell cameo pinned to her blouse or maybe it was the sharp look in her eyes as she took in the layer of mud on Schrödinger’s van and the forlorn state of my clothing.
“Miss Trelawney, this is my driver, Mister Liddel,” Sarah said, giving me a warning glare.
“I like your cameo,” I said. “Are those the three graces?”
“Very good, Mister Liddel,” Miss Trelawney said. “Extra marks if you can name them.”
“Let’s see. Aglaia. Euphrosyne. And…? Rumpelstiltskin?”
“Thalia. I am impressed, Mister Liddel. Are all western cowboys as well versed in Greek Mythology as you?”
“Western…?”
“I told Miss Trelawney about your time in the American West,” Sarah interrupted. Again with the warning glare. “And she has asked that you speak to the girls about your experiences. I told her you would be delighted.”
They billeted me in a spare room in the gatekeeper’s lodge. I think the idea was to keep me as far away from the girls as possible while still allowing me to stay the grounds. The bed was hard and the room smelled of mice but I was tired and looking forward to a night’s sleep. I was just about to blow out the bedside oil lamp when there was a knock on the room’s outside window. I opened the cast-iron casement latch and was almost knocked over as Sarah pulled herself into the room over the window ledge.
“You know this building does have doors,” I said.
“It would never do for me to be seen in a man’s room unchaperoned,” Sarah said.
“It’s too late for them to expel you.”
“True, but it would set a very bad example for the girls.”
“Can’t have that,” I agreed. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I wanted to let you know about the special assembly Miss Trelawney has called for ten o’clock tomorrow.”
“Does this have something to do with you volunteering me as a guest speaker?”
“Yes. You are to talk on the American West.”
“See, now here’s the problem. What I know about the American West wouldn’t fill the back of a postage stamp.”
“Just make something up. Nobody will know the difference.”
“Why don’t we just slip away before everyone is up?”
“We need to keep on Miss Trelawney’s good side, in case someone comes looking for us.”
This was a side of Sarah I had never seen before. With her long chestnut hair pulled back in a ready-for-anything ponytail and her normally pale cheeks flushed with color, she looked like a grown-up version of Harriet the Spy. “Ok, I’ll just come out and ask,” I said. “Why would the headmistress think someone might be chasing you?”
“I told her I am being persecuted because of my suffragette activities. She is a clandestine supporter of the movement.”
“Well I suppose I could fake my way through a short talk. But prepare yourself to be bored.”
; As it turned out my speech was anything but boring, not because of what I said, but because of the accompanying distractions.
Chapter XXIX:
The Assembly – An Interruption – A Failed Escape
At ten o’clock the next morning, I found myself staring out into a sea of kilted girlhood while Miss Trelawney delivered an introduction that made it sound like I was a cross between Deadeye Dick and Buffalo Bill. She was just getting into full swing when I heard someone hiss at me from the side curtains of the stage. I got up as unobtrusively as I could and made my way to the wings where Sarah was waiting.
“Fox and Flowers,” she whispered.
“What about them?”
“They’re here.”
“How did they find us?” I asked.
“That snake Schrödinger must have told them we were coming here.”
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”