“When Alison was showing me around the basement of the hall,” said May, “I asked her about the rushing noise beneath our feet. She explained about the river drainage, and said part of the floor below had been cemented up at the beginning of the century because of problems with flooding. James Makepeace Whitstable had the rooms partitioned off down there for a very good reason. He diverted the river around them so that no one would attempt to break through the wall, no matter how curious they became. I think if we open up that wall, we’ll find our doomsday machine. Of course, if I’m wrong we’ll probably drown.”
As they unfolded themselves from the miniature car, May looked up at the cheerless edifice of the Worshipful Company of Watchmakers. He was convinced that Charles had full knowledge of the guild’s inner circle. The difficulty lay in forcing his hand.
“How are we going to get in at this time of night?” he asked Bryant, who was removing the tool kit from the rear seat and attempting to untangle his scarf from the safety belt.
“One good thing about having Charles Whitstable brought in when we had nothing to hold him on – I had his keys lifted from his jacket. I didn’t want to ask him for them in case he tried to warn someone.”
Two locks had to be unfastened before the door could be opened, following which they had to key off an alarm system in a cupboard at the foot of the main staircase. May located a battery of light switches and brightened the hall, but they would have to rely on torches, brought along to cope with the unreliable illumination afforded by the basement’s emergency system.
The lift jarred to a halt. “We’re still on the first level below ground,” said May, puzzled. “Alison said there was another floor under this.”
“Perhaps you have to take the stairs.”
“I remember now.” He pulled open the trellis. “The electrics operate on a separate system. We’ll walk down.” The fire door at the end of the hall had obviously not been opened for years. May was unable to budge it, and it took several blows from the sledgehammer to release the locking bar. As they pushed it back, their torch beams sent hordes of brown rats scurrying into darkness. The walls were wet with condensation.
“Be careful on these steps,” called May. “The cement’s softened up in places.”
“It smells like something died down here.”
Ahead, the stairway twisted. Bryant stepped gingerly downwards, and nearly fell when his heel pressed down on the bulky body of a dead rat. Turning the torch to his shoe, he saw tiny bleached maggots swarming about the rodent’s head in a diseased halo. The sound of rushing water could be plainly heard now. They reached the foot of the stairway, and shone their torches into the dark hole of the corridor ahead.
“Who’s going first, then?”
“I suppose I will,” offered May.
“Thank God for that,” said Bryant, much relieved.
Their shoes splashed in shallow puddles as they followed the passageway. The walls were marked with furred spears of mold. Two sets of irregular markings showed where doorways had been sealed up with cinderblocks and cement. “It can’t be either of those,” said May. “The brickwork’s too modern.”
“The 1930s, at least,” agreed Bryant. “What about this one at the end?” They had reached another, larger sealed doorway. The entrance was almost twice as high as the previous ones they had passed, and had been closed off with standard-sized house bricks. The paintwork covering them matched the walls.
“This has to be it,” said May, crouching to study the cementwork.
“The best way to find out is by dismantling the wall.” Bryant ran his fingers over the mildewed surface. “It shouldn’t take much. The bricks are soft. Too much water vapour in the air. Give them a bash with your hammer.”
May gave the sledgehammer a practice swing. “I hope you’re right about this.” The first blow gouged a shallow path through the rotten mortar. May kept the hammer swinging, concentrating on one part of the wall. His partner stood off to one side, listening as the sound of water continued to grow. The next blow dislodged a pair of bricks.
May lowered the hammer and shone his torch inside. “Oh, you’re going to love this.”
Before his partner could see, May continued to swing the hammer until the hole was large enough to climb through. Then he stepped back. “You figured out where it was,” he said. “You should be the first to go inside.”
“Er, thank you,” said Bryant uncertainly, stepping over the low brick wall and ducking his head. The floor of the room was covered with six inches of icy water. Something in the dark was slowly ticking with a heavy steel ring, like a giant grandfather clock. Bryant pressed his back against the inner wall and raised his torch.
The light from the torch beam reflected a dull gleam of curved brass. The device was between twenty and twenty-five feet high, circular in construction, resting on a base of four cylindrical brass pipes. Its appearance reminded Bryant of an astrologer’s instrument, an astrolabe, consisting of skeletal globes laced within one another, so that each could move independently of the rest.
At the centre was the most mechanically complex part of the instrument, a partially enclosed steel dome housing a series of cogs and ratchets that allowed the movement of the various metal bands comprising each globe. As they watched, one of the inner bands shifted fractionally, providing a subtle alteration in the composition of the whole.
Immediately there was a buzz and a tiny blue flicker of electrical light at the centre of the device, as if a new connection had been made.
As Bryant approached, he could see that each of the brass strips on the outer globe was calibrated with finely engraved measurements. Then he noticed that all of the curving bands were marked, one with minutes and hours of the day, another with the days of the year, and another with the years of the century. Others were inscribed with monetary equations for accruing interest, and financial configurations covering every possible eventuality. At the end of every arm was a tiny enamel-faced clock, set in an engraved gold bracket.
“Look at all the clocks,” said May. “There must be dozens of them.”
“One for every heir and rival in the Whitstable empire,” added Bryant in awe, looking at the names attached to them. He tallied them quickly. “Seventy-seven in all.”
“James Makepeace Whitstable gave his stewards commemorative gold watches. All of the victims had Victorian gold timepieces. Even Daisy had a gold christening clock.”
Bryant knew that they were looking at the cold, damaged heart of the Whitstable empire, a manufactured embodiment of everything that had grown flawed and had failed in imperialist England.
The pair stood mesmerised by the vast, imperceptibly turning machine, their torch beams bouncing from one section to another. The room was silent but for the steady steel tick from the centre, and behind that, the fainter ticking of dozens of smaller clocks.
“It’s like an orrery,” said Bryant, awed. “You know, one of those mechanical models of the solar system.”
“It’s beautiful,” agreed his partner, slowly stepping back against the wall. As he did so, he brushed against the warm flesh of another living creature. His shout of fear filled the room, echoing as the metal bands of the astrolabe acted like tuning forks, reinforcing his cry to an unbearable din.
? Seventy-Seven Clocks ?
46
The Engineer
“You already apologized for being late,” Jerry said. “You don’t have to make any rash promises about the future.”
“They aren’t rash promises, I assure you,” said Charles, refilling her wine glass. True to his vow, he had arranged for the delivery of an Indian meal. The choice of nationality was fitting, for the apartment was filled with Indian carvings and tapestries. Ancient terracotta figures of Harappan women stood beside finely carved friezes of tigers and elephants. “I would love to show you India. My work there has only just begun. For a major industrial country, they export very little. It’s a situation we’re trying to help remedy. When I have time, I travel to the great plains beyond the cities, where the night skies are the deepest blue-black, so vast and dark that you think you’ll never see the dawn again.”
“It sounds beautiful,” she said, suppressing a shiver.
