in the bookshelves, any incriminating material had been carefully removed.
It wasn’t until she had worked out how to operate the rolling stepladder that she discovered a top shelf filled with obscure Victorian volumes. While several editions proved individually interesting, they provided her with no collective insight to the mysteries of James Makepeace Whitstable and his Stewards of Heaven. Seating herself in one of the deep leather armchairs within a bay window overlooking the frozen fields, she began to read.
Just before one, a bell sounded in the hall. “No doubt that will be your father,” said Charles, who had come to look in on her. “Don’t get up – finish what you’re reading. I’ll have him wait in the parlour until you’re ready.”
The shift in authority was clearly meant to be noted. Now that she was being accepted into the family business, she enjoyed the protection of Charles. Her father would meekly wait outside while she finished reading her book. The thought gave her little satisfaction. Poor Gwen and Jack. They had offered her up as a sacrifice to their ambition, only to find themselves excluded again.
Lunchtime with Charles and her father was punctuated throughout with awkward pauses. After the meal Jack was virtually dismissed and told to return to London. Charles would see to it that Jerry was returned safe and sound first thing on Monday morning.
For the rest of the day she and Charles worked side by side in the grand study, as he explained his long-term plans for the guild. She saw that the work was not as dull as it had first appeared. Indeed, she could envisage certain circumstances under which it would be a pleasure to remain beside him all day.
Their meal together that evening had the intimate quality of a candlelit dinner, even if it took place beneath electric light.
¦
John May sat at his desk and fought to keep the horror of Alison’s death from his mind.
But there would be time enough later for grief. The best thing to do was find a way to avenge her. May was a logical man. He sought patterns in chaos. Now he thought about the chart of deaths Arthur had logged to date. Could the attacks be following a sequence, even if they conformed to no easily identifiable pattern?
If someone was working out a sequence for the murders, how would he choose his dates? Then there was the deadline: 28 December. There wasn’t much time left. He spread the details out before him, each death, each attack on a separate piece of paper.
No particular numerological significance. Could the dates have been chosen haphazardly? Suppose they were scientifically random, like a Turing code? Turing had successfully cracked cryptographic messages created on a typewriter attached to a print wheel, and had suggested that computers would be capable of human thought only if a random element, such as a roulette wheel, was introduced. But why would anyone go to the trouble of doing that?
There had to be a logic at work. The deaths were irregularly spaced, but there had to be a pattern. By what coordinates, though?
December the sixth to the twenty-eighth. Why not the first of the month to the last? That would be more logical. Why not a correspondence to the lunar cycle?
Across the desk, a weather chart in Bryant’s folded newspaper caught his eye.
May turned the paper around and studied the article more carefully. The murder dates corresponded with those when individual records had been broken for the most rainfall in a twenty-four-hour period.
He withdrew a chewed pencil stub from beneath his shirt and drew two lines on a sheet of paper. Along both lines he marked days six to twenty-eight. On the first line he added a mark whenever a death had occurred. On the second, he marked the record rainfall highs.
The spacing was the same. The rain highs were precisely ten hours before each of the deaths, except for the unpremediated attacks on Alison Hatfield and Pippa Whitstable.
What on earth was he supposed to do with information like this?
Whatever it was, he needed to start thinking fast; it had just begun to rain again.
? Seventy-Seven Clocks ?
40
Automaton
“For God’s sake, Arthur, you’ve been missing all day. Can’t you come back in the morning?” May had returned home to find his partner standing on his doorstep, looking like a rain-battered scarecrow.
“Don’t ever complain about me not wearing my bleeper again, because I’ve been trying yours for the past four hours.” Only Bryant’s eyes and ears were poking out above his scarf. The top of his head was an odd shade of greyish blue. “A car pulled up a few minutes ago and some kindly Samaritan asked me if I needed a bed for the night. I had to see him off with a stick. Where on earth have you been?”
“I’ve been walking and thinking,” said May, finding his keys and opening the main door.
“Well done, you. Come up with anything?” He trudged wetly behind May up to his apartment, his shoes squelching on the stairs.
“The deaths are tied in with the monthly rainfall figures.”
“Excuse me, I’m going deaf,” said Bryant, unwinding his scarf and chafing his ears as he entered the room. “For a minute I thought you said the deaths were tied in with the rain. They always used to say the butler did it. Now you’re telling me it’s the weatherman?”
“I’ll explain after you tell me what you’re here for.” May was used to working through the night with his partner, but Arthur had never waited on the doorstep for him before.
“While we’re exchanging information, I know why James Makepeace Whitstable formed his alliance on the twenty-eighth of December. I know what he formed it for, and I know why people are dying. You’d better put the kettle on. This is going to take some time.”
While May made tea, Bryant turned up the centralheating thermostat, then located a bottle of brandy. “It’s funny how things just hit you. I was standing at the railings on the Embankment this morning – ”
“God, where have you
“Working it out. You know how I am.”
“You must have been freezing,” said May, setting down a tray.
“Got my thermals on.” Bryant tapped his leg. “I needed the wind coming in off the river to clear my thoughts. It certainly shifted some phlegm, I can tell you. Anyway, it was dawn and suddenly the lights went out, all the way along the Embankment. That was it. I made the connection. It was Gilbert and Sullivan, you see.”
“No, I don’t see.”
“James Whitstable had called his men to town to discuss an idea he’d had. Think of his position. These were trusted friends, guildsmen born and bred, people he’d known all his life. He wanted to justify their loyalty, to protect and strengthen the Watchmakers. He thought he could do it by providing the guild with a group of like-minded individuals dedicated to keeping the bright light of private enterprise burning, no matter what. He would see that British craftsmanship remained unchallenged by foreign rivals as it went out into the world. The Victorians were building for immortality. James Whitstable wanted to ensure that the Watchmakers lasted for ever.”
“Arthur, I fail to see where this is leading – ”
“The aims of the alliance are stated in the signatory contract. We know that James Whitstable summoned his men and booked them into the Savoy at noon on the twenty-eighth of December 1881. The group took a light lunch in the hotel restaurant, and Whitstable arranged another reservation at ten-thirty that evening. This is also clearly documented. What had Whitstable planned for the rest of the day? Well, we know they spent the main part of the evening in his suite, drawing up the charter and signing it. But what of the afternoon? There were plenty of red- blooded pursuits to take their fancy. Remember, this was a time of great licentiousness in the West End.”
