by KW Jeter
"An accident," I assured him. "Nothing but a broken watch spring. Would you be so kind as to clean it up?"
A few moments later, as I stood behind the counter examining the device left behind by my morning's visitor, with an odd premonitory unease staying my hand from lifting the lid, a shout came from the workroom. Creff appeared in the passageway, wadded rag in hand.
"There's no blood here." He sounded annoyed, as if having discovered a jest played on him. "It's all wet, right enough, but there's no blood."
"You must be mistaken," I said. "In the back, by my father's old things."
"See for yourself, then,"
I followed him down the steps. In the workroom, by the brass wall of my father's creations, where I had seen the jagged edge of metal tear the brown skin, I knelt down on the stone floor. Creff held the lantern above, illuminating the spattered wetness from my client's wound.
Even before I touched it, a faint scent traced across my nostrils, evoking memories of childhood: the aunt who raised me, and our visits to the seashore at Margate. I dabbed a finger at one of the spots. The fluid on my fingertip was perfectly clear, rather than the thick scarlet I had expected. Curious, I tasted it.
Not blood, but brine. As I knelt upon a stone floor in the heart of London, memories of sand and wheeling gulls deepened, unlocked by the sharp, vivid tang of sea water.
2
Visits of Portent
I have returned from my regular morning perambulation. Long acquaintance with my father's devices, and the eliminative functions of a dog grown old even before he became my companion in travail and peril, have made my habits as rigidly timed as those mechanical figures that parade in and out of the faces of certain Bavarian clock towers.
In a smoke-darkened courtyard branching off my route, a group of children in tattered smocks, bare feet as black as the street grime they skipped upon, sang and played a simple hand-clapping game. The dog barked, as though to join in their shrill, innocent glee, but a chill settled around my own heart as I made out the words that accompanied their criss-crossing dirty arms and slapping palms.
Georgie's fiddle
Georgie's clock,
Georgie sets him in the dock;
With his bow
And ladies low,
Georgie's fiddle and clock!
The children ran off, laughing and shouting rude gibes at the man who gazed after them with stricken expression. Painful memories, evoked by the childish song, marched behind my creased brow as, dog at heel, I retraced my steps homeward. The game's jingling rhymes were, no doubt, a decaying echo of those street ballads – complete unto infamous detail! – that first sprang up when my affairs came under the eye of public attention. I recalled the horrid evening, when I, thinking I had at last been returned to safety and anonymity, stopped at the perimeter of a crowd assembled to listen to an itinerant singer. Within minutes, I had realised that, to the tune of "Hail, Smiling Morn," a bawdy account of my recent perils was being related to the audience. Above their heads a coloured board had swayed on the end of a pole, with an artful caricature of my own face leering at maidens swooning to my supposed violin-playing; one ladylike hand had been depicted by the artist as trembling to touch the exaggerated clock-winding key into which a private section of my anatomy had been transformed. The sight of this villainous depiction in the hands of the balladeer's accomplice had staggered me backwards; the nearest faces had turned towards me and had spotted the resemblance between me and the demon fiddler on the placard; across dizzy-heaving streets I had been forced to flee before a general hubbub could arise. Shortly after, I had decamped to my new residence and hidey-hole, in a less populous district where my alleged crimes might go unnoticed against the backdrop of the inhabitants' grey squalor.
Having returned to my desk and pen, the dog once more at his somnolent station by the coal-grate, I strive to banish the singing, mocking voices from my thoughts. To no avail: they form a constant obbligato to the actual words and tones I seek to conjure from the past.
The day on which the Brown Leather Man first made an appearance in my life would have remained memorable for that alone. That he should be followed by other visitors, who would prove to be equally significant, illustrates that principle best described as the Superfluity of Events.
My puzzlement at the morning's caller and the commission he had given me circulated through my thoughts for the balance of the day. A fit of pique had been engendered in Creff by my failure to heed his dire warnings about the "Ethiope" or, perhaps, by the same's obstinate refusal to actually murder me. The lack of his willing assistance left me unable to do more than carry the mahogany casket, weighty device inside, from the shop counter to the workroom bench. Under the lamp, the intricate brass assemblage seemed as intimidating as before; I left it for the next day, when my resources – and Creff – might be better marshalled.
No further custom came that day. It seemed increasingly likely that the Brown Leather Man's device would have to be the salvation of my accounts. The coin he had deposited as partial payment weighed heavy in my waistcoat as I pulled the shutters against the evening's approaching darkness.
As I was about to extinguish the shop brackets, a knock came upon the door. I lifted the shade and peered through the glass at the barely discernible figure beyond. The weight and fine tailoring of the cloak revealed the person's gentlemanly status. Before I could speak, he rapped again on the glass with the silver head of his cane. "Come on, come on," he called in a slightly coarse accent, unplaceable to me. "Jesus H. Christ," I heard him whisper to another figure behind him. "Sure gotta deal with a lot of dim bulbs around here…"
The unfamiliar inflection and incomprehensible terms I attributed then to foreign or modish affectation. My reclusive habits kept me apart from those cant phrases "What a shocking bad hat!" and the like – that flourish on everyone's tongue for a season, to be replaced by something equally foolish. That this gentleman had time for such frivolity bespoke money, and the urge to spend it; I unlocked the door and bade him enter.
He swept in with magnificent carriage, the ebony stick planted in sharp arrogance with each step. The cloak was worn with Byronic panache; the waistcoat had been embroidered with gilt thread far beyond economy or taste. His hawkish, faintly pocked countenance was surmounted by spectacles of dark blue glass, hiding his eyes, although the only illumination on the street had been the yellow, mist-shrouded glow of the corner gas lamp. He made no motion to remove the spectacles, but examined me through them as though bending forward to the lens of a microscope.
His companion draped herself on his arm, one hand resting in the crook of his elbow. I had only a moment to note her fair, somewhat sharp-nosed beauty; the gaze she levelled at me from under her dark lashes drove my own away in confusion, while the gentleman's bark turned me on my heel towards him.
"You're Dower?" He lifted his cane to point at me with its silver tip.
"I am. That is, the son–"
"Yeah, right. Sure." The lady looked up at him and squeezed his arm in some manner of signal. He fell silent, frowning and pinching his lower lip, as if gathering his thoughts. When he spoke again, his words were wrapped in a mannered formality.
"Mr Dower," he said, bowing slightly. "I have the pleasure of your acquaintance. Um, that is, let me introduce myself. Scape – Graeme Scape." He shifted the cane and extended a gloved hand, then, upon receiving another warning squeeze from the lady, withdrew it while muttering another incomprehensible word under his breath. "This is Jane – I mean, Miss McThane. May I present. Whatever."
She parted the folds of her shawl enough to reveal the white curve of her throat. I stammered some simple pleasantry, the heat of my blood blossoming across my face. The smile Miss McThane bestowed on me was of a disturbing frankness that I had encountered only once before, when, a fresh-arrived innocent in London, I had chanced to stroll through the Burlington Arcade and had been approached by a seeming lady and greeted with a such-like smile and a murmured "Ar
e you good-natured, dear?" – an offer clear to even one as naive as myself. Then I had been able to flee that precinct of glittering jewellers'-windows and even more glittering women, and thus maintain my innocence. In the confines of my own shop, however, I felt myself cornered and stalked by the scarlet smile and discreetly lowered sable lashes.
My transfixed gaze was broken away from hers by the sharp rap of Scape's cane upon the floor. As though startled awake from a guilt-provoking dream, I looked around at him.
"Mr Dower." His smile pulled his mouth lopsided, as though we shared some conspirators' knowledge between us. "I'd like to talk some business over with you. Okay? I mean… that all right with you?"
Some aspect of his manner, an oddity in his bearing, puzzled me. He had not the polished presentation of self that marks the aristocratic gentleman born to wealth and position. Nor the assured forthrightness, blunt of word and face, that characterizes the new entrepreneurial class whose money and mercantile ideas have obscured so much of the national landscape within this generation, like the smoke from their foundries and chuffing engines of commerce. Not a foreigner; however strange his choice of phrase, it seemed clear that English of some district was his native tongue. Charlatanism or knavery of another ilk rose in my mind as the possible explanation, yet the gentleman – if gentleman he was – displayed no part of that sidling, herpetoid insinuation by which the diddler places himself inside the victim's confidence. In the space of a few seconds, my mind skittered from one hypothesis to the next, all the while pursued and confused by the ineradicable image of dark eyes and snow-white throat.
"Well? You okay?"
The impatient bark of the self-designated Scape brought me out of my muddled reverie. The blue lenses drew closer – to my face, the eyes behind endeavouring to discern my health.
"Yes… yes, of course." I stammered out the words, watching myself in the dark mirrors of his spectacles, careful to keep my gaze from straying to the gently smiling visage of his companion. "Terribly sorry; the fatigue of a long day, I'm afraid." I stepped behind the shop counter and spread my hands along its smooth surface. "How may I assist you?"
Scape disengaged his arm from his companion's embrace and folded his hands upon the silver head of his walking stick. Miss McThane drifted with her teasing smile to examine one of the clocks on the wall, staying within hearing distance of any talk. "Maybe you've heard about me already, Dower." He lifted a hand to withdraw a card from an inside pocket; which he then laid on the counter in front of me.
"I don't believe so." Ordinary courtesy, and a shopkeeper's self-interest, ruled out a direct disavowal. "Perhaps…" I looked down at the pasteboard square on the counter. In florid lettering, it announced
The word Automata triggered a wary attitude on my part. Of that segment of my father's career concerned with the production of lifelike human figures capable of motion, speech, and other appurtenances of flesh and blood, I had, from the bitter upshot of my own dabbling with the devices my father had left behind, learned to deny any knowledge. The scenes of chaos inside the church of Saint Mary Alderhythe, kept from public scandal by the good offices and influence of the parish authorities, had been sufficient warning for me. If this gentleman's interest in my wares and services were limited to clockwork jiggery that imitated corporeal habits, then there was no possibility of commerce between us. The inflections of my voice were guarded as I pushed the card with one finger back across the counter.
"No," I spoke, shaking my head, "I'm afraid not. Doubtless, if I had more time for edifying culture, I would be familiar with your contributions. Still–"
"Don't sweat it," interrupted Scape, dismissing my ignorance with a wave of his hand.
"Pardon?"
"I'll send you some tickets, next time we play London." He swayed on the pivot of his cane, watching his uplifted hand paint an imaginary scene above our heads. "Bright lights, names all lit up in neon; you bring your girlfriend around to the box office, they'll give you the best seats in the house–"
"I'm not sure I follow…" His manner had become excited and effusive, and I didn't catch the meaning, possibly lewd, of some of his words. His companion laid her hand on his arm, which had some calming effect.
"Forget it," said Scape. "No problem."
Miss McThane brought her sly smile around to me again. "We've been touring abroad a great deal. It rubs off, you know? The way they talk, and stuff." In this, the longest speech she had directed to me, the same odd accent and diction appeared, that I had noticed in the gentleman's voice.
"Yeah, right," agreed Scape. "Those crazy Italians. Hah. Wild – really wild."
"How may I help you?" I said, hoping to move the conversation to a productive vein.
"Business – yeah." He swivelled his gaze around, searching among the clock faces, then back to me. "These, uh, automata I got – I take 'em around to places. And they do their bit. You follow me?"
I could see my politely reserved expression doubled in the blue lenses trained on me. "I believe so. You refer, I take it, to musical performances–"
"You got it, jack."
"And these mechanical devices that form your troupe – are they of your own creation?" I wished to draw him out, gently as possible, to find the actual extent of his knowledge of clockwork musicians.
"No – no." Scape shook his head. "I got 'em from what's his name…"
"Jackey Droze," supplied Miss McThane.
It took a moment for the words to spark anything in my memory. "You mean Jacquet-Droz," I said. The name of the eighteenth-century Swiss watchmaker, and the two sons that followed in their father's career (with more success than I had on a similar course), was familiar to me, as it had once been to all Europe. Indeed, Creff had informed me that my father had once travelled expressly to Lisbon in order to examine the devices christened by their maker Charles the Scribe, Henri the Draughtsman, and The Musician. The senior Dower's interest in, and efforts towards perfecting, the mechanical similitude of human action, presumably dated from that Portuguese visit.
"That's the guy," said Scape.
"You are, then, the current owner of the celebrated organ-playing figure?" I knew that the mechanical woman, reputed by some to have been modelled by Pierre Jacquet-Droz after his own wife, had changed hands many times after the watchmaker and his sons had toured with their creations before the Continent's crowned heads.
"Uh, no, actually–" An echo of my own wariness entered Scape's manner. "Some other ones that he made."
"Others?"
"Yeah. A, uh, trumpet player and a couple of… what's that other thing called… with the strings? – cello. That's it – two cello players."
"Extraordinary." I rubbed my chin, feigning the depth of my musing. "I never heard tell of any such musical devices crafted by Jacquet-Droz."
Scrape gave a diffident shrug. "Well, you see, he never showed 'em to anybody. They just sorta stayed in the family, you know? And then I bought 'em off the old guy's great-grandson."
"I see." Indeed I did; whatever suspicions I'd had of this extraordinary person's less than honest intent had been all but confirmed by his exposition. Jacquet-Droz's skill in clockwork had, by all reports that have come down to the modern day, been eclipsed only by his genius for showmanship and self-promotion. The notion that he would create a veritable orchestra of musicians and not put them on display with his other mechanical children was obviously farcical. This, in combination with the muddled recall of what instruments this supposed impresario's troupe played, marked him in my eye as a person whose every word would need to be examined for fraudulency.
"And in what connection, sir," I continued, "have you come to me? I must confess I know little of music, being merely" – I smiled, lifting my hands towards the ticking wares displayed on the walls – "a simple watchmaker."
Scape returned my smile, or at least half of it; only one side of his face twitched to reveal a few yellow teeth. He leaned over the head of his cane, bringing his face closer to mine.
"Well, you see… I'd like to build the act up a little. You know? I mean a trumpet-player and a couple of cellos – it's getting kinda old. People wanna hear something different. Got me? Like, maybe, something that could… sing…"
"That would be a marvel." It was obvious that he wished me to hand up on a platter the fish his verbal hook dangled for. From the corner of my eye I caught a change of expression in Miss McThane's face and, glancing at her, saw her dark eyes narrowed in what might have been grudging respect as they gazed at me.
Scape persisted. "Or – play… the violin." His words jabbed at me, in the manner of someone forcing the wrong key into an unyielding lock.
"To have such a device, I would imagine, would place one in your profession at the pinnacle of success."
He turned away from me, the better to hide the exclamation of annoyance which he muttered under his breath; I caught only what seemed to be the syllable cog (perhaps a reference to my mechanical trade) and the word succour (a prayer for divine assistance?). I smiled to myself, pleased with my fending off his pointed inquiries.
