His Clockwork Canary

Briscoe’s clockwork propulsion engine into their psychedelic painted bus and sixty-nine, give or take, twentieth- century radical peace activists—”

“Of various brilliance and professions within the realm of arts and science,” Phin added.

“—successfully hopped dimensions,” Simon said. “Departing in 1969 and traveling in reverse, arriving in 1856, five years after Briscoe made his great escape from Prince Albert’s Great Exhibition in 1851.”

“Houdini,” Willie said, whilst nibbling on cheese. “Daddy said Harry Houdini was, or will be, a famous escape artist. A magician. A showman. According to tales, Briscoe made a show out of his time-traveling launch.”

“It’s true,” Simon said. “My father witnessed the event. Although Briscoe was a distant cousin and several years my father’s senior, they did have an acquaintance and a shared passion for science. My father was but eighteen when he attended Prince Albert’s tribute to technological achievements. Briscoe chose his platform well. He had an audience of thousands. And, after much bloated pomp and circumstance, the man strapped himself into his gleaming self-professed ‘time machine’ and disappeared in a rainbow of brilliant light. At the time many thought it was an optical illusion. A magician’s trick.”

“By a flamboyant showman,” Phin said. “Escaping to another time. An unparalleled stunt of magnificent proportions.”

“A stunt that would have made Houdini proud.” Willie closed her eyes and thought back. Back to Filmore’s memories. “Something about Houdini,” she said.

“We’ve already determined that the Houdinians took their name from Harry Houdini,” Phin said. “Like Houdini and like Briscoe, the Peace Rebels performed a magnificent stunt, escaping back in time.”

“Then we surmise,” Simon said, “that at some point your mother, Filmore, and Rollins conspired to pinch the clockwork propulsion engine—”

“Again,” Phin said.

“—and to secure it somewhere safe in case it became necessary to escape even this century.”

“In order to spread their cautionary tales even earlier in time, say the eighteenth century,” Phin ventured. “Or perhaps to return to their own time. Or, hell, to take a spontaneous holiday. Who knows? Well, aside from Jefferson Filmore and Ollie Rollins. Wherever they are.”

“London.” Willie’s eyes flew open as she slammed her palms to the table. “I think they, or at least Filmore, might be in London.”

Simon and Phin traded a look. “Why?”

“The revolving safe house.”

Brow raised, Simon abandoned his cold pork sandwich. “We’ve been over this several times and that is the first mention of a revolving safe house. Am I right, Phin?” Simon asked without breaking eye contact with Willie.

“Right you are. What does it mean? Where did it come from?”

“One of Filmore’s memories.” Willie sipped her wine, tried to temper her excitement. “When I saw my mother, I was so stunned, I called out. Mother, first. Then Michelle. At once Filmore flashed back to the future. What I saw and heard was so unfamiliar and then all at once he reverted to the past. He was arguing with my mother and Rollins about whether to hide in the west, north, or south. In one of the future memories, my mother made mention of a revolving safe house. It was just one of a few phrases I did not understand and it only came back to me just now as I was trying to slow those memories.”

“Yes, but what is it?” Phin asked. “Is it to be taken literally? A house that is safe?”

“Or perhaps a house where you keep something safe,” Simon said.

Willie’s journalistic mind chugged as she fueled it with more and more conjecture. “In my lifetime, my family lived in three cities. New York City, Edinburgh, and London.”

“West, north, and south,” Simon said.

“In that order?” Phin asked.

“No. London, Edinburgh, America, then back to London. My mother claimed to work for a global security firm, so it would make sense that she would live near whatever she was protecting, aye? She was killed seven years ago whilst living in London—a victim of a hit-and-run accident. We found Filmore in Edinburgh.”

“The revolving safe house,” Phin said. “Three cities. Every so often or whenever they felt threatened, they revolved the engine to one of those three cities.”

“If you follow the pattern as you stated it, Willie, the next safe house would be New York City,” Simon said.

“If you followed the pattern, aye. But there are no longer three Houdinians. Only Filmore and Rollins or Filmore and a mercenary. And they have been protecting that engine for more than thirty years now. You saw Filmore. He had to be close to sixty years old, which would make Rollins seventy or more.” She paused as his younger face flashed in her mind, shivered with a wave of deja vu.

Simon touched her forearm. “What is it?”

She shook off the strangeness. “Nothing. Sorry. Just that feeling that I’ve seen Rollins before, but damn, I cannot seem to place him.”

“It’ll come to you,” Phin said, drinking the last of his wine. “Meanwhile we have a vague location. London is a hell of a lot closer than New York City. It would make sense to look there first regardless. But where to start?”

“Underground,” Willie said.

Simon angled his head. “Another vault?”

Willie gulped her own wine now. “Whilst tracing my father, the most vivid and tumultuous memory was one of my mother looking wide-eyed and spooked. My father held her, saying, You spend too much time with the dead.”

“Catacombs,” Simon said. “The coffinlike vault. That is the actual ‘safe house.’ And they shuffle it between the three cities.”

“Three cities with extensive underground passages.” Phin scratched his head. “Good God. London Bridge alone harbors a veritable subterranean city of passages, crypts, and vaults. There’s an entire lattice of catacombs beneath Waterloo. Those are just two possibilities. And what about all of the churches and abbeys? How do we know what we’re dealing with? Where to look?”

“I have a friend,” Simon said. “Montague Lambert. He owns a literary antiquities shop. His map collection is quite extensive. I say we fly back to London tonight, get a good night’s sleep, and meet at Lambert’s tomorrow morning.”

“Right, then,” Phin said, pushing to his feet. “London it is. God, but I love a good adventure,” he added whilst rushing toward the main deck.

Willie tried to stand but couldn’t find the energy. “I must confess, I’m feeling overwhelmed. It’s all somewhat fantastical.”

“Quite the story,” Simon said, shifting to sit beside her. “And we still don’t know the whole of it yet. I have a feeling your editor, Dawson, will sing your praises, indeed kiss your feet, when you submit your serialized account of our adventure.”

Willie’s mouth went dry. “Indeed, this is the sort of sensational reporting that would put the London Informer back on top.”

“And to catapult the Clockwork Canary to celebrity status.”

She cast him a hurt look. “Are you testing me, Simon?”

“No.” He put his arm around her and pulled her close. “Truly I’m not. It is a conundrum even for me. A story like this, it’s bigger than one newspaper. It alters history books. Depending on how things unfold, we could be sitting on a damned fortune.”

“Fortune enough to save your family.”

“And yours.”

She rubbed her temples. “If only it weren’t so personal.”

He kissed the top of her head. “The conundrum.”

She glanced up at him then. “My pressman’s nose smells more trouble. Something foul, Simon. I worry that we’re going to discover something . . . ugly. Remember when I relayed the memory of my mother telling my father, There’s a traitor among us?”

Simon nodded.