He nodded and pulled her back toward the gate. “Time to move!”
They reached the gate. Marion yanked at the hinges. “It’s locked! Oh God.”
She turned around. A soft gray veil had enveloped the room. The hissing and ticking ceased, only to be followed by a final plume of dark smoke. The air was hot and short of oxygen.
There was a rush of footsteps as someone crossed the library floor beyond the gate, though Marion was now too delirious with fear to comprehend what it meant or who it was. She sank to the floor, her eyesight tunneling, her limbs weak.
A sharp crack split through the air and everything went black.
19
THE SEVEN-YEAR SAFE
Saturday morning. Marion’s pupils adjusted to the bright light of the infirmary. The inside of her elbow stung where a drip had been plunged into her vein. Her head throbbed, as if someone had drilled a bolt through her skull and was twisting it around just for fun. She turned to her left. Kenny was lying in the next bed, apparently asleep. Several beds onward (which were occupied by a number of disgruntled-looking apprentices and staff) was Bill.
She disentangled herself from the drip and attempted to get to her feet.
“Miss Lane, what are you doing?” Dr. Fitzpatrick—head of medical—raced to her side.
“I’m fine.” She steadied herself with Fitzpatrick’s assistance.
“You’re not fine. Sit down.” She pressed Marion back onto the bed.
“B-Bill...” she stammered. The words burned in her throat. “What happened to him?”
“He’s fine, though we’ve just sedated him for the time being.”
“Sedated?”
“He was injured in the blast, Miss Lane.”
“The blast?” She stared at Fitzpatrick absently, trying to remember the last moment before everything went black. Someone had opened the lock room gate or was at least standing there just outside, she was almost sure of that. But what happened next, she had no idea.
Fitzpatrick provided no elaboration.
“Is it serious?” Marion pressed, craning her neck to get a better look at Bill. He seemed to be attached to a multitude of tubes and wires, though no injuries were immediately obvious.
“He’ll be absolutely fine.”
“How long will he be sedated for?”
“For a few hours. Please relax, Miss Lane. He just needs some rest.”
“And Hugo?” She looked at Kenny. His eyes flickered.
“Mild intoxication, just like you. Everyone’s fine.” She adjusted a dial on the drip, then moved off to the dispensary next door.
Kenny stirred and opened his eyes. He turned to Marion, extended his left arm out, reaching for the small brass compass on his bedside table. Her heart thumped. For those first few precious moments of consciousness, she’d happily forgotten the entire point of last night’s expedition—to keep an eye on Swindlehurst, to make sure he didn’t disappear. Even if the tracking device was still on him, the compass would only detect the Vagor Stone’s pull if he was within a half-mile range.
Kenny flipped open the compass.
“And?” Marion asked eagerly.
Kenny heaved a sigh. He showed her the face of the compass, devoid of even the slightest green glow.
Marion sank down into her pillow. Kenny looked defeated. His usually perfectly slicked blond hair was now disheveled and dull, his face edged with disappointment, angst. Strangely, however, she sensed this rawness was perhaps the first glimpse she’d had of the real Kenny Hugo—not all hair wax, cologne and confidence, after all. “How are you feeling, by the way?”
He rubbed his forehead. “Certainly been better.” His eyes traced her limbs, her face. He winced as he noticed a large bruise on her elbow. He reached out to touch her hand. “I’m sorry. I should have left you in the ballroom. I should have followed Swindlehurst on my own.”
“No. I want to help. You must know that by now.”
Kenny nodded and pulled himself upright. “Frankly, I’m surprised either of us are alive. At least we know why Swindlehurst wanted a distraction.”
The infirmary door opened once again; this time Professor Gillroth stepped inside. Marion recoiled at the sight of him. It was an involuntary reaction, instinctual. Gillroth’s warnings to retract herself from the investigation and cease her meddling ways now seemed well-founded. She still didn’t know if that meant he’d been trying to protect her or himself.
The professor lowered himself into a chair between Marion’s and Kenny’s beds, placing his walking stick on the floor. He was worn and pale, looking older than before.
“Miss Lane, Mr. Hugo. How are you feeling?” His rheumy eyes swept over them with concern.
Marion opened her mouth, her throat dry and cracked. “We’re fine, I think.”
Gillroth nodded. For a moment he looked uncertain of whom to address. “Fitzpatrick informed me that the two of you witnessed some sort of gas leak. Near the lock room, I’m told?”
Marion and Kenny stirred as they eyed one another. They hadn’t yet discussed what their cover story would be, nor had they discussed what had really happened in the lock room. Fitzpatrick had mentioned an explosion and now Gillroth was talking about a gas leak—neither of which sounded quite right.
Kenny’s expression was one of caution, as Marion herself felt. The less said, the better, they seemed to agree without words.
“Yes,” Marion said at last. “We were in the library. I’m not sure what it was. There was a lot of smoke.”
“I see.” The professor pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed the corners of his eyes. Not tears of sadness but old age. “And what were you doing in the library? The circus bored you, did it?” He smiled, or perhaps it was more a grimace.
“We’d like to speak to Nancy,” Kenny interjected after a note of silence. “Could you send word for her to contact us?”
Gillroth breathed, coarse, strained, shallow. “I’d be most happy to, Mr. Hugo. However, I’m afraid that since yesterday, no one’s heard from her.” He turned to Marion. “The beer kegs were laced with a peculiar substance, something alchemical, I’m told. I’m also told that Professor Bal is conducting an examination of a rather interesting black box found at the site of the, eh, gas leak. And one other thing, Edgar has disappeared. His office has been cleared out.” He waited. He watched. The aged and atrophied muscles of his face twitched with distress, agitation.
Marion and Kenny held their silence until the professor gave in.
“Very well, Miss Lane, Mr. Hugo.” He struggled to his feet; the walking stick creaked with the strain of his weight. “I’m very sorry for what happened, to both of you and Mr. Hobb. I do hope your recovery is swift.” He nodded, as if confirming a thought. “Please know, as ever, I have your best interests at heart.” He paused, lowered his voice and continued. “Whatever Edgar has done, whatever he plans to do, I have had no part in it. Please know that.”
“I think we’ve got to tell him,” Kenny said as soon as Gillroth had left. “About what you found in the tunnels, I mean. It’s the only link between Swindlehurst and the murder, and since Nancy is MIA...”
Marion ripped the drip from her arm. “You can, if you’d like. But Gillroth knows more than he’s letting on, I’m sure of that. I doubt whatever you tell him will be a surprise.”
“Okay, so what, then?”
“Keep an eye on the compass and leave a message at my room if it lights up.” She collected her purse from the drawer beside the bed and groaned as a lightning-sharp stab of pain caught her in the back.
“Where are you going?” He gripped her arm gently. He looked at her with those eyes of his; it made her catch her breath. “We’re in this together now.”
“Swindlehurst is gone, Kenny. And I guarantee he took all evidence of Operation Gray Eagle with him. No one’s going to bel
ieve what I discovered down there unless we can find him.” Her voice was sharp, strained.
“Yeah, I agree. But how are we going to do that? The compass is out of range.”`
“By understanding what happened last night. If we know what he removed from the lock room, maybe we can figure out where he’s gone. I have to visit Professor Bal.”
* * *
Marion made her way down to the Gadgetry Department with Kenny in tow.
Along the way, they didn’t encounter a single Miss Brickett’s employee, and Marion wondered what everyone who’d been affected by the mass drugging the night before might be thinking. Had they awoken sometime after midnight to find themselves slumped uncomfortably in their seats in the ballroom with no recollection of what they’d been doing there? Had they stumbled off to their rooms or back home, awaking the next day from what must have been a very bright, unusual dream?
For Marion, it was all starting to feel a like a nightmare. Frank’s sentencing would take place in just five days and although she now knew how Swindlehurst had slipped past the camera and into the lock room the night of the murder, she wasn’t quite sure the vial of silvery mist she’d uncovered from his lair was enough to clear Frank’s name. She needed to know his motive.
She sidestepped the gargoyle outside the Workshop door and entered. Professor Bal emerged from his office.
“You’re okay!” he gushed at Marion, glancing only briefly at Kenny. He guided them toward a workbench nearby covered in a pile of broken steel. “I’m so sorry,” he added, shaking his head. “The circus—we wanted it to be a surprise but... I thought there was something off about it toward the end. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s hardly your fault, Professor,” Marion said. She placed a hand on his shoulder, then steered the conversation toward the purpose of her visit. “We were hoping you might be able to explain what happened in the lock room?”
The professor looked uncertain. “Rupert has said not to speak to anyone about it for the time being.” He contemplated the pile of collapsed steel before him. Through the mess of springs, screws and bolts, Marion could make out something that looked remotely like the large black box she’d seen Swindlehurst remove from the lock room wall. It was really just the frame of the box that remained, and part of the door—a flap of black steel, in the center of which was the small dial of a combination lock completely intact.
“Yes, I know,” Marion said, attempting to keep the impatience from her voice, “but Kenny was hired by Nancy to solve White’s murder. Nancy would approve of any information you pass to him. And thus to me,” she added quickly. “Please, Professor. We’re in a hurry. We need to know.”
Bal removed his beret with an air of acceptance. He turned his focus to the workbench rubble. “It’s called a clockwork safe,” he began. “I made all the drawers in the lock room myself. There are one hundred and fourteen of them down there. All are safes that can be opened with a key or a combination. They’re very simple with minimal security features, and if you know a thing or two about codes, they’re easy to open. But this one I did not make.” He pointed to the pile of metal and springs. “It’s a very rare version of what we have in the lock room. Very difficult to make. I’m afraid that if I had known it was there—”
“You didn’t?” Marion asked, glancing at Kenny.
“I don’t think anyone but Edgar did. He must have had it installed without our knowledge.”
“What’s so special about it, then?” Kenny asked.
“Well...you see,” the professor said, lifting from the rubble a mangled face of what appeared to be an ordinary clock. “Clockwork safes are special because they are designed to hold the most secret of secrets. Things you would rather have destroyed than discovered. They were very popular in the early thirties and forties—I suppose there were a lot of dangerous secrets in those days...” He trailed off, as if remembering something, perhaps a secret of his own. “MI5 found them quite useful, as you can imagine. Mostly for classified documents, papers they’d prefer never saw the light of day.”
“Did you sell them at the Factory?” Marion asked.
“Oh, no, Marion. Not me. There is only one person in the whole of England who knows how to make one.”
“Yes, and? Who is he?” Kenny asked impatiently.
The professor glanced nervously around the Workshop. “She...” he hissed, low and cautious. “Not a very nice lady.” He shook his head to emphasize the fact. “No, no, but very clever, very skilled.”
With a pounding head and aching body, Marion was in no mood for riddles. She felt as if she hadn’t slept properly in days. “Right, so Swindlehurst went and bought this clockwork safe from this...unpleasant woman?”
“Yes, Marion, he must have had a very dangerous secret to keep.” He bent back over the pile of broken metal on the workbench and removed what looked like some sort of key. “You see this? It’s used to set the timer on the safe. The timer is attached to the safe’s locking mechanism and is used to set the date and time on which the lock can be opened. With every turn of the key, the clock winds up another twenty-four hours.” He demonstrated, turning the key in midair. “One day—” he turned it once “—two days—” he turned it a second time “—three days...”
“Yes, yes, we get the point,” Kenny snapped.
Marion glowered at him. “Go on, Professor.”
Bal smiled gingerly and continued. “It is believed that the longer the timer is set for, the more dreadful the secret locked within. I’m told a member of the British Secret Service bought one in 1946 to store highly classified wartime papers. As the rumor goes, he asked for the timer to be set for an indefinite period. It was set for 876,000 hours, or one hundred years.”
“That’s all very interesting but—” Kenny began, but Marion cut him off.
“Can you tell us how long this one was set for, Professor?”
The professor brought his magnifying glass to his right eye. He picked up the heart of the tiny clock and turned it over, examining the miniature cog that sat in the center. “Two thousand five hundred and fifty-five days. Or seven years exactly.”
Marion frowned. “Seven years.”
“But why did the whole thing go off like that?” Kenny asked. “Is that supposed to happen?”
“No. And yes. You were not listening. I told you, clockwork safes are very secure because you’re only able to open them when the timer expires. And only the person who sets the timer can know when this is.” He drew a long breath. “You see, if you set one today—” he looked at his watch “—Saturday, April 26, to open in one year, then you must open it on the twenty-sixth of April 1959 at exactly ten minutes and one second past ten a.m. If anyone tries to open it before the timer expires, a trigger is set that ignites a flame inside the box. Everything inside would then be destroyed within seconds.”
“So, the safe’s contents will be destroyed if the safe is opened before the timer expires. But what if it’s opened afterward?” Marion asked.
“Then you’ll get what happened in the lock room. A series of deterrents is released, chosen by the original owner.” He pulled the microscope from his neck and laid it on the table next to him. “You see, there is a good chance the owner could forget to open the safe at the exact right date and time, or be unable to for some reason. Therefore, there must be a way the safe can be opened postexpiration. And so they are loaded with deterrents, different for every safe and avoidable if you know what they are.”
“Swindlehurst knew what the deterrents were,” Marion said as she leaned over the rubble of broken springs and screws. “He knew there was going to be an explosion and he probably knew exactly how much time he had to remove the safe’s contents before it went off. I remember him checking his watch, rushing from the lock room as the detonator began.”
The professor looked confused. “Detonator? Explosion? There was no explosion, Marion. You�
�d both be dead if there had been. The deterrents were only meant to look and sound like one. It was just an alarm, preceded by a trail of gas, something similar to sleeping gas.”
“Makes sense,” Kenny said. “We blacked out, didn’t we?”
Marion thought for a moment. “I suppose, and anyway, it doesn’t matter. The point is, Swindlehurst knew what the deterrents were and he was prepared for them. Unlike the rest of us. That must be why he planned the Circus Ball, all the lights, the fireworks. It was a distraction. But it couldn’t have been his original plan. There must have been a reason he didn’t open the safe when it was supposed to be opened. Professor,” she said, going out on a limb, “can you tell us exactly when the safe was meant to be opened. The date and time?”
“I can try.” He picked up the tiny clock and tweaked something set in the back with a screwdriver. “I’ve never made a safe like this before, as I told you, but...maybe...” He fiddled with a series of tiny clockwork parts for what felt like ages. “Ah, here we are.”
Marion’s heart began to race. She was fairly certain of what his answer would be, and the thought of it made her blood run cold.
The professor frowned and grumbled to himself, again twisting and jabbing at the clock’s heart until at last: “It was set seven years ago, as I said... April 11, 1951, at twelve midnight.”
“April 11—” she turned to Kenny, his face as pale as her own must have been “—1951 plus seven.”
“The night White was murdered...”
A vague and indistinct memory loomed in the back of Marion’s mind, an additional significance of the date—April 11, 1958—one she couldn’t quite grasp.
“Did White know it was going to happen?” Kenny asked, disrupting her train of thought.
“Yes, I think so,” Marion said. Even though the pieces of the puzzle were now beginning to fit together, it wasn’t making her feel any better. If anything, she was more terrified than ever. “Swindlehurst intended to open the safe the night of April 11 and White somehow knew it,” she began, now voicing her theory. “Maybe White wanted to stop him from removing whatever was inside the safe, or maybe she just wanted to see what it was. Either way, she must have known the exact time he was going to be in the lock room.” She looked at Professor Bal, whose dark skin was now all ashen. As he busied himself with something on the neighboring workbench, Marion turned to Kenny and spoke in a low whisper.
Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder Page 23