time to see him reach the corner at Prince’s Street.
“Get him!” Gavin shouted needlessly, for Alice was already in pursuit. She dodged an overturned carriage and stomped around the corner just in time to see the clockworker standing motionless in the center of the street. He snapped a salute to Alice, took one step sideways, and dropped out of sight.
Chapter Thirteen
“No!” Alice tromped over to the spot and found nothing but the open sewer hole. The smell of rotted waste oozed upward. “Do we dare?” she said.
Gavin, still clutching his fiddle, jumped down to peer into the hole. “We’d have a fifty-fifty chance of going in the wrong direction,” he said. “And I don’t have a light.”
“I had the same thought. I’m not sure if I’m unhappy or relieved, to tell you the truth. Slogging through the sewer is hardly my idea of fun.”
“I’ve done it,” Gavin said. “It’s even worse than you’re thinking.”
“What now, then?”
“We need to get out of here before reporters show up and start asking questions. The Ward doesn’t like publicity. And we need to get Tree and Barton and his mechanical back to headquarters. Can you still drive it?”
“Reporters?” Alice twisted around in the seat as if one might leap out of a window at her. “Are any here now?”
“Might be.” Gavin shrugged. “They run toward disasters instead of away from them.”
Alice slumped down. “I can’t be recognized.”
“You won’t be. You still look like a boy in that hat and those trousers. But let’s get out of here, just in case.”
The zombies had dispersed, finding their way back into alleys and side streets. Gavin clambered into the mechanical, and Alice hurried it toward Tree. Once again, Gavin’s body pressed unavoidably against Alice’s. She tried to ignore the feelings this aroused in her but found it a losing battle. He smelled like leather and sweat, unlike Norbert’s scent of cologne and linen. His muscles were hard and powerful, unlike Norbert’s softer frame. His-
“Lamppost!” Gavin yelled.
“Sorry.” She skirted the object and reached Tree. Already, people and traffic were returning to the intersection. One of the policemen they’d seen earlier hurried up to them as Gavin was climbing down. He looked nervous but determined.
“I need to ask you some questions, sir,” he said, then glanced up at Alice. “And you, lad.”
“Crown business.” From somewhere in the recesses of his clothing, Gavin produced a metal badge. “I have to get my prisoner to headquarters.”
Before the bobby could protest further, Gavin whistled and Tree bent down so he could hoist himself upward. Barton continued to snooze among the branches. The policeman retreated uncertainly. “Now look-,” he began.
“Ask for Lieutenant Phipps through Scotland Yard,” Gavin called down. “She’ll tell you it’s taken care of. Follow me, Allen.”
It took Alice a moment to realize he meant her. She touched the brim of her borrowed hat at the policeman and turned the mechanical to follow Gavin. They reached the spot where Fleet Street and its noisy press shops and smelly factories joined the wide thoroughfare of the Strand, which followed the river Thames down to Westminster and, ultimately, Third Ward headquarters. Guarding the spot was the Temple Bar, a two-story stone archway that blocked the street between the three- and four-story buildings. The top half was solid stone, adorned with bas relief statues of the Queen and the Prince of Wales. The lower half was an archway barely tall enough for a beer truck, and only wide enough for two carts to pass in opposite directions. Pedestrians were shunted through a pair of side doors on either side of the Bar, but cart traffic was forced in like sand through an hourglass. When Alice was little, she had happened to be walking nearby with Father when the Queen in her grand carriage had come up the Strand, intending to enter the City from Westminster. The gates of Temple Bar were slammed shut to bar the way-hence the name-and John Humphrey, Lord Mayor of London, strode out to meet the young Victoria, who was in her fourth year of reign. This was before Father’s illness, and he was easily strong enough to lift Alice so she could see over the heads of the crowd. The men had all removed their hats. The Queen ascended from her carriage, looking young and beautiful in a silken gown of deep blue. Jewels gleamed at her throat and on her fingers. She approached Humphrey and, in a voice that rang clearly, asked for the Lord Mayor’s loyalty. Humphrey presented her with a pearl-encrusted sword, and they exchanged other formal pleasantries as traffic piled up on both sides of the Bar. Eventually, the Queen ascended back into her carriage, the Bar reopened, and the royal carriage drove through, allowing traffic to move.
“I got to see the Queen!” Alice said breathlessly. “The Queen!”
“You did indeed.” Father set her on the sidewalk. “Something to remember forever, eh?”
“What was all that for?” she asked.
“Old tradition, dating back to Queen Elizabeth. The Lord Mayor is technically the sovereign of the City, so the Queen asks for his loyalty. He gives her one of the five City swords to show she indeed has it, and he orders the gates open. Some say she’s asking permission to enter the City as well, but that’s rubbish.”
“What happens to the sword?” Alice asked. “Does the Queen give it back for next time? Does she get a new one every time she comes into the City?”
Father scratched his head. “You know, I never thought about that. You’ll have to ask the Queen the next time you see her.”
“I will,” Alice said. “May I have an ice?”
Back then, Alice had thought Temple Bar awe-inspiring and the ceremony fascinating. Now, however, she saw only congested traffic where the crowded street narrowed from four lanes to two. They slowed, joining the line of carts and carriages. Alice fidgeted. People stared at Tree and the mechanical as they passed, though traffic didn’t halt. Machines and other strange objects weren’t uncommon in London, as long as they behaved themselves. Still, Alice was nervous about being recognized, and she kept her hat pulled low. The line of traffic at the Temple Bar stalled, edged slowly forward, stalled again.
And then she saw Norbert. He emerged from the pedestrian gate on the south side of the Temple Bar and strolled straight toward them. The fine material of his conservatively cut suit and waistcoat stood out from the crowd of rougher men, as did his confident air. Alice’s heart jerked. Whether she told Norbert the full-blown lie or the edited truth wouldn’t matter in the slightest if he caught her red-handed with Gavin. She put a hand over her mouth as if scratching her nose, turned her head away from him, and prayed he would walk on by.
“You, lad!”
His familiar voice filtered through the street noise. Alice flicked a glance downward. Norbert was standing at the mechanical’s feet, arms folded.
“Yes, you, lad!” he called. “Tell me who built this machine. I can’t imagine it was you.”
All the breath left Alice’s breast. Panic constricted her chest with iron bands and her bowels turned to liquid. She couldn’t think. If she spoke, or even lowered her hands, he would recognize her. What could she-
“Oi! Don’t talk to ’im!” Gavin said from Tree. His American accent had been replaced with something one might hear from Seven Dials. “He’s just an apprentice, and anyway’e lost ’is voice in an accident. Inhaled the wrong fumes.”
Norbert turned. Traffic edged forward again, but he was easily able to keep pace with Tree and the mechanical. “Are you his master? You look young for-”
“No, guv’nor. That’s our master.” Gavin pointed to Barton. “What do you wants to know?”
Alice sat motionless in the mechanical. Relief that Norbert was no longer looking in her direction eased some of the panic, but the danger was still imminent.
“I run a machinery concern,” Norbert said to Gavin. “If your master builds mechanicals and needs a source of machine parts, I would like to speak with him.”
“Yeah, all right. I’ll tell ’im when he’s finished sleepin’ it off. You got a card, guv?”
Norbert handed one up, and Gavin thanked him. He turned to go, then paused and came back to the mechanical. He squinted up at Alice, and she started to panic again. He knew.
