“When we went to retrieve our crates,” said Chloe and Ambrose nodded and relaxed.
“Yes, she spoke to them about the design of Mrs. Granger’s mechanical hound. She explained as much to them as she was able.”
“Much of Mrs. Granger’s designs were beyond what I understood,” said Chloe. “Part of my hope of calling on her was to have her explain them to me.”
Mr. Granger ignored her and spoke to Ambrose. “As much as she was able? I thought she was my wife’s equal. Inspector Lockton said that she understood the schematics down to every detail. How disappointing.” He eyed Chloe with what looked like faint disgust.
The audacity! Hot anger bubbled up and then she had a tiny flash of understanding. Mr. Granger was not merely a deeply rude and unpleasant man. This was calculated to throw both Ambrose and her off their guard. But why? Her anger surged at discovering the manipulation, but she tamped it down. She needed a cool head if she wanted to obtain her goal. She relaxed her face into a look of pleasant feminine obedience, or what she imagined to be such a look, and folded her hands in her lap.
Ambrose hesitated. “She is well able to understand the schematics if she had all of them. The police did not have the complete set. If they had, I’m certain she would have been able to comprehend and explain them.”
“Perhaps. But it is now moot. The hound is being hunted as we speak, and will be destroyed. The police have concluded the obvious: that the creature murdered my Camille.” The last words were uttered with unexpected tenderness.
It gave Chloe pause for only a moment. “There is no possible way the hound could have harmed her. That was the whole point of my conversation with Inspector Lockton. The center of gravity, the impossibility of it generating enough velocity—”
“But you had never seen the creature,” said Mr. Granger. “I have. And it was no pleasant little plaything like your animal there,” he pointed at Giles. “The hound could be given behavior spools to become a guard dog. And we all know that guard dogs can turn on their masters.”
A glint of satisfaction was in his eye as he turned back to Ambrose. “The thing is a monster.”
“Even if the hound was dangerous,” said Ambrose, “there are other things that Mrs. Granger created that could be of benefit to society, if they were developed. For example, my wife has mentioned some battery designs.”
Mr. Granger leaned back in his chair. “I’m afraid not.”
“I’m sorry?” said Ambrose, uncomprehending.
“You may not have them. Not now, not ever.”
“But, but why? What possible use do you have for such things? They are only useful in the hands of someone who can understand them.”
Comprehension dawned for Chloe. “Do you plan on sending them to a university?”
“No. They won’t be going anywhere.”
Chloe glanced at Ambrose, but he was equally dumbfounded. Mr. Granger sat back and steepled his fingers, watching them both.
“I had them burned this morning. All of them. Everything.”
Chloe gasped and the room swam for an instant.
“Every notebook. Every blueprint. Every scrap of paper. And the gears and wires and strange mechanical limbs and anything else that wouldn’t burn has been smashed and thrown in the rubbish heap, to be hauled away.”
Chloe stared at the empty table. All of it, gone. All that information, all that genius. The work, the years of labor and imagination. Her friend had been murdered twice.
“Why did you do this?” Ambrose’s voice was so soft that it broke Chloe out of her shock. His expression was so sad. It took her a moment before she understood. He imagined that Mr. Granger had destroyed everything in the depths of his grief. She wondered if Ambrose would do the same to her things if the situation were reversed.
“No other monstrosities will ever be created from her designs. That infernal creation out there is the only thing left, and the police will destroy it. Good riddance, I say.” He sat forward and slapped his knees. “And if any other things from my wife’s laboratory were still in existence, I would demand that they be destroyed as well.” He looked straight at Chloe and stood, towering over them.
Immediately, Ambrose rose to face him, and she thought for an instant that the men were going to fight.
“Thank you for your time. You have been most hospitable.” Ambrose’s voice held no sarcasm, though his meaning was clear.
“Good afternoon,” said Chloe. Ambrose placed his hand on the small of her back and they left the room, Giles trotting behind.
Once in the carriage, Chloe bit back her fury and disappointment. She stroked Giles, which helped calm her. She needed tea, hot tea. And a pillow to slam her fists into.
“He knew,” she said. “He knew exactly why we were there. And he was playing with us.”
“He is grieving. There’s no telling what a man will do when in that state.”
“Yes, like playing cat and mouse with us. It was hateful.”
“Perhaps he wasn’t himself.”
“You are too generous, my love. He knew all along why we were there, and he was toying with us.”
“But judging from his countenance, he derived little pleasure in the exercise.”
“Just because he’s a miserable old blighter doesn’t make him pitiable. Though he was pitiable, I suppose. A little. Even so.” She looked out the window. Somewhere out there was Camille’s hound. “I think we need to take a little stroll this afternoon.”
Chapter 13
After a brief stop by the house, they set out. The walk to the crossroads was almost two miles. Chloe wished they could have taken the steamcycle, but it was sitting partially disassembled in the carriage house.
They walked together down the road toward the crossroads, pausing only twice for Ambrose to examine a plant or bit of bluish moss. At last, they reached the crossroads.
“Why don’t you go around in that direction,” Ambrose pointed. “And I’ll circle around the other way.”
“A sound plan.”
“Oh, and do be careful.”
Chloe plunged into the green and purple moor grass, lifting her skirts and looking for the signs of dangerous ground, just as Ambrose had taught her. Bogs could be disguised, and even the sure-footed native ponies slipped into them on occasion.
The bog in which Camille Granger’s body had been found was covered in smooth moss and edged with waving reeds. Its scent was not unpleasant, a combination of rich mud and composting plant life. She had not noticed when she had seen Camille’s body, but it did not stink of death or stagnation. At the far side of the bog, nearest the crossroads, was the bank of stones that looked like a half-cairn.
She picked her way around the bog, eyes on the ground, scanning. The grasses hissed in the wind, and her skin prickled in the chilly breeze. She decided to circle the bog and end her circuit near the crossroads. She would have to step over a small stream that trickled out of the bog, but she thought she could manage it.
She arrived at the base of the bog, but there was nothing but grass, scrubby plants and rocks. She lifted her skirts to hop across the trickling stream, where a few rocks shone slick and moss-green in the water. Her shoes were muddy, but they would dry on the walk home and she could scrape them clean before going into the house.
Ambrose was taking the opposite direction around the bog from the one she had taken. He would arrive at a point near the topmost edge of the bog when she did. They could then go on to the bank of rocks together. She waved to him, but his eyes were intent upon the ground.
“Ah! There we are!” cried Ambrose. “Footprints from the hound again. And fresh!”
She hurried over and examined them. They were in the same place as the ones they had noticed when they saw Camille’s body. Only now, there were more of them. Both of them tried to discern a pattern to the hound’s movements, but the prints circled back over themselves repeatedly. They got fainter, and then vanished altogether in the bracken and grass.
“Wh
y would it be circling? Perhaps its directional controls are damaged?” She squinted at the prints, willing them to provide her information.
“I don’t see a discernible pattern,” said Ambrose.
Chloe headed for the stone bank. She was feeling more sure-footed now that she was farther from the bog. The ground felt more steady here, and dryer. Ambrose was behind her.
The rock bank rose before them. It seemed larger now that they were closer. It had seemed waist-high from a distance, but now proved to be as high as her neck. It was twice as wide as it was high, and the stones were large and moss-covered on one side. She passed in front of it slowly, looking into the little black crevices, but only saw the shadows of more rocks inside. She turned away from it, put her hand up to shade her eyes and scanned the landscape.
“Where could it be?”
“If those tracks are any indication, it’s probably malfunctioning and wandering around without direction or purpose,” said Ambrose.
“No. It circled, but it’s not aimless. It visited the churchyard, you recall. I think it is still functional.”
“Grim thing to do,” he frowned. “It’s as if it wanted to see her buried.”
“What do you mean?”
“If it visited the churchyard, you have to wonder why. It acted in anticipation of her burial. The thing can think, Chloe.”
Perhaps its visit to the churchyard was by chance. But no, there were hundreds of square miles of moor, and the likelihood of it arriving in the town was small.
“Hold on a moment,” she said. “If the hound were attracted to light or buildings, it may have ended up there of its own volition. It wouldn’t need to anticipate a burial for that.”
“Perhaps not. But still …” He pulled his coat tighter around him and studied the bog.
“What are you thinking?”
“First, I am thinking that this isn’t a bog.” He brightened. “It’s a fen. See the stream going out? And note those sedges and rushes there? Bogs are acidic, but these plants couldn’t survive in such an environment.”
He was ever the naturalist. But she was in no mood for him to change the subject. “And second?”
“And second, I am thinking that it is possible that the hound killed her. Possible, I say. Not definite. That will be up to that inspector and the police to discover.”
“Yes, and if they are twice as competent as the imbeciles at Scotland Yard, they could have the Ripper himself murder ten women, and the townsfolk would be speculating about angry spirits or churchyard grims—”
“Or murderous mechanicals.”
“Precisely. Everyone is more concerned with this fearful mechanical than with a real killer. Whoever he is, be he Mr. Granger or someone else, he must be as pleased as Mr. Punch with all this ridiculous speculation.”
“You have to admit, it is a possibility that the hound killed her.”
She threw up her hands and spun around to face him, but before she could reply, her eye fell on a rock that was different than the others. What was it? She tried to focus, to calm her mind as she did when examining the innards of a mechanical. Then she saw. It had no thin covering of moss on its side as did its brothers.
“What do you see?” asked Ambrose.
She bent over the place at the edge of the cairn where there were only a few stones and the furthest ones lay buried in the grass. Two feet from the end of the bank sat this odd stone, resting on its edge against the others. It was shaped like a very jagged octagon, flatter than the others, and the diameter of a serving platter. She tried to pull it, but its base was deep in a groove in the dirt. The groove was a foot long, and the dirt was disturbed. Her blood ran chill. This stone had been moved recently.
She squatted and pulled up her skirts so as not to dirty them. She shoved the stone again, and it moved to the side, half-rolling and half grinding into the earth. Another push, and a hole behind it was revealed.
Chloe heard Ambrose grunt as he lowered himself to see, but she was already reaching inside. Within the hole was a wooden box lid about a foot and a half long. It was shoved back like a drawer, and she pulled it out.
Inside the lid were bits and oddments, three pieces of metal, some coins, colored glass, feathers, and some newspaper scraps. The scraps were not whole articles, but rather random samplings of pictures, text and edges. There was no order to them. It was as if a small child had torn them out.
“They’re new,” said Ambrose after picking up a scrap. “But they’re badly crumpled.”
“Do you see a date?”
“No, but they aren’t yellowed. The paper fiber is not even warped by the moisture. These are fresh.”
She rifled through cloth scraps, some smooth pebbles and turned over a coin. It was old and weathered and she could barely make out the face on it.
“Do you still think it cannot think?” said Ambrose.
“I don’t know. But if it can, then it’s all the more vital that I find it before the police do. They’ll only destroy it.”
“If it harmed her, then it should be destroyed.” His voice behind her was soft.
“But even if it harmed her, it cannot be held responsible. It doesn’t know right from wrong. It possesses no moral compass. And it isn’t like a vicious dog that must be destroyed because it will hurt someone again. It can be turned off, like Giles. And perhaps examined. That’s if the idiot police don’t smash it to bits first.”
She pushed the box lid back into its place and Ambrose helped her reposition the stone in front.
“The police may not destroy it,” he said. “Mr. Granger can demand what he likes, but they may not be a pack of destructive brutes, as you fear.”
“Then they would summon whoever runs the local mechanical shop. Then, when he cannot make heads or tails of the creature, they might send it to someone in Bristol or Exeter or maybe London. And then, it would rot in a box in the police evidence warehouse, or in some attic of a mechanical shop where no one understands it. Our only hope is that it might be sent to a university somewhere, where someone could work out how it operates.”
“Even then …”
“Yes,” she sighed. “It could take years. We would never hear of it.”
“You are the only person in all of Britain that could decipher the thing, aren’t you?”
She glanced at him, but his eyes were far of in the distance, where the shadows were lengthening and the wind was blowing the grass into undulating waves.
“I suppose that is why I must find it first.”
Chapter 14
Chloe balanced on the library ladder, her arm outstretched and fingers straining to reach the book. Just a few more inches, and it would be hers. She climbed up a step and held on with one hand, repositioning herself for another try. She balanced on one foot, the other dangling in air and stretched.
She would rather not ask a servant to fetch the book. Something told her that she was already the topic of enough household disapproval without showing undue curiosity about the area. As a family guest, she would be expected to take a few walks through the garden, daily ones if she liked. If accompanied, she could take walks around the nearby countryside. But going further out into the wilderness, especially with a killer on the loose, crossed the line from merely eccentric into the bizarre.
The library was well-stocked, though it appeared largely unused. She had noted that the tops of most of the books were dusty, especially the higher ones, where she was dangling now. The blasted ladder only rolled so far on its track, and the far end of the bookshelf was reachable only by the tall. Chloe was built like a teapot, which, under other circumstances was not so inconvenient.
Her fingers brushed the top of the atlas, but she could not pull it out. She found if she pulled closer volumes out, her desired book, A Dartmoor Companion, leaned closer. She did so, and at last, she had it in her hands. She arranged the other books back on their shelf and climbed down the ladder.
She turned to leave when footsteps sounded in the hallw
ay and the library door swung open. She was still in the corner of the room, so the door blocked her view of the new arrivals.
“—for Harvest Home?” asked a young female voice.
“In three days at sundown. Same circle as the last time,” said a woman’s voice.
“Will Granger be there?”
“No reason for him not to be.”
They moved into the room and one of them pushed the door shut behind them. Mrs. Block, the housekeeper, froze for an instant upon spotting Chloe, but then nodded and moved aside as Chloe passed. The girl beside her looked horrified, but a moment later, her face became expressionless. Both of them had the same straight, dainty nose and red hair, although Mrs. Block’s was mostly gray. Chloe guessed they were aunt and niece.
Chloe went to her room and seated herself by the window where Giles sat on the windowsill. She flipped through map after map of the cities of Dartmoor: Princetown, Two Bridges, and the nearest, Farnbridge. The book was twenty years old, and the few streets she had seen had in town boasted far more shops than were shown here. Also, there was no airship station on these maps. But that was less important than finding likely hiding places for the hound.
There was a knock at the door. Chloe sighed, set aside her book and answered. Beatrice stood outside.
“Would you care to join me and the other ladies in the withdrawing room? We were chatting before supper, and all were in agreement that we had not had the pleasure of your company very often in the past few days. I hope you are settling in nicely?”
She glanced at the room behind Chloe. Thankfully, Miss Haynes and the maids kept the room tidy. Aside from a few books and papers, it looked presentable.
“I am quite comfortable.” She thought of the book of maps with longing. She dearly wanted to go out on the moors as soon as it was light in the morning and look for the hound. The police had more manpower and knew the moors far better than she did. But she would have time after supper to go through the maps. And she could hardly refuse Beatrice’s invitation without being unpardonably rude.
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