The Minutes of the Lazarus Club

by Tony Pollard

  Ockham, as was his usual custom, left the meeting on his own, while I, in keeping with my previous habit, accepted a lift in Brunel’s carriage. I waited until we had turned the corner to offer my congratulations.

  Brunel laughed so hard it made him cough. ‘It’s just as well none of them have been to Egypt!’

  ‘I don’t follow your meaning, Isambard.’

  ‘Why, a heart in a canopic jar? What nonsense!’

  He had lost me. ‘How so?’

  ‘Because the only organ the Egyptians never removed from the body was the heart; they regarded it as the home of the soul.’

  ‘But you said the heart was weighed in heaven.’

  ‘And indeed it was, but the task was carried out by a god, not some numbskull priest. Only a god may handle the heart.’ He snatched up the jar from the seat beside him. ‘Poetic licence, I know, but I thought a heart might help to draw out our man – cause him to look uncomfortable, misplace a word, anything to betray his guilt.’

  I knew from experience that identifying the guilty party merely through observing their behaviour was less than straightforward. ‘I didn’t see anything, did you?’

  ‘Alas no, but then he’s a cold fish, isn’t he?’

  ‘Who is?’

  Brunel rolled his eyes. ‘Russell of course – that stony-faced shipwright is hiding something, of that there can be no doubt.’

  This portrait of inscrutability did not marry with the man I had seen in a rage after the accident at the yard, but I said nothing.

  The engineer tapped the falcon’s beak. ‘Talking of which, do you know what’s really in here?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘The intestines, that’s what. It says so here on the front.’ He pointed at the hieroglyphs and laughed. ‘Little did they know it but they were handling a jar full of guts.’

  It seemed fitting that even Brunel’s telltale heart had itself proved to be a liar.

  Having taken my leave of a high-spirited Brunel, I wasted no time settling myself into bed with a nightcap and the book Ockham had given me while on the ship. Despite Brunel’s failure to identify our foe it had been a most satisfactory evening and so a little light reading was in order.

  There was an introduction to the volume, written by the author herself. In it she described the origins of Frankenstein, and the role played by Ockham’s grandfather was again highlighted. Even here, in the introduction, her writing struck a chord:

  I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out…

  The picture she painted with these words was not an unfamiliar one; the cadaver stretched out on the table before me, my knife poised to make the first incision. ‘… and then,’ she continued:

  on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handiwork, horror-stricken. He would hope that, left to itself, the slight spark of life which he had communicated would fade; that this thing which had received such imperfect animation would subside into dead matter, and he would quench forever the transient existence of the hideous corpse which he looked upon as the cradle of life.

  With Dr Frankenstein and his terrible creature for company I read on until my eyes ached, at one point leaping from the bed to retrieve the notes taken from the minutes. Several of the phrases in the book seemed familiar and my hunch proved right – Ockham had copied them into the minutes taken during Brunel’s presentation on the heart. One phrase in particular stood out:

  I am not recording the vision of a madman.

  Casting my mind over what I had learned about Brunel over almost two years I decided to withhold my judgement.

  24

  Ockham worked against the current with a well-practised dexterity, his even strokes pulling us steadily along. With the bow of the small boat pointing upriver the monstrous hulk to our stern was swallowed up by the night. The blades cut into the water with a quiet plash, plash, the rags wrapped around the oar shafts muffling the sound of their movement in the rowlocks. We had waited until well after midnight before pushing away from the ship, by which time we could be confident of our departure going unobserved.

  When we had covered enough distance to compensate for the current Ockham turned the boat into our final approach. Good early progress notwithstanding, finding our mark on the opposite shore was proving less than straightforward, as the absence of a moon, while masking our movements, also served to obscure any landmarks. We had been aiming for a point just to the west of the yard, but landed well inside the fence that ran down from the street to the water’s edge. Our original plan had been to land at low tide on the bank just to the outside of the fence and then enter by paddling around it. Now, if we were to have any hope of escaping the attentions of the watchman our misjudgement would necessitate great care when disembarking and while clambering back onboard. It was just as well there were only two of us – with some difficulty I had managed to persuade Brunel that he was not up to the physical strain.

  The boat buffeted against the thick wooden rails previously used to deliver the ship into the water. Taking hold of the mooring rope, I hopped from the bow, skating hazardously on the slippery surface of the timber. Finding firmer but wetter footing on the muddy gravel, I pulled the boat up into the gap between two of the rails and anchored the rope by driving the metal spike on the end of it into the gravel. With our vessel securely beached Ockham passed me the bag before joining me on shore. A flicker of light in the distance marked the watchman’s hut, which like a sentry box was located next to the main gate. Even though we had landed slightly off course our arrival by boat still retained a double benefit; it negated the need to scale the wall from the street and also put us as far away from the watchman’s hut as it was possible to get.

  The heaps of timber and other post-launch debris still littering the foreshore provided good cover and we soon found ourselves alongside one of the two big sheds. Ockham pulled the bag from his shoulder and signalled me to grab the end of a length of timber lying at our feet. Shifting the plank to one side exposed a ladder, hidden there the day before by my partner in crime. Taking hold of an end apiece we carried it to the side of the shed and leant it up against the wall. After peeping around the corner to check there was no movement from the hut Ockham dashed back for his bag before beginning his ascent.

  I then commenced my own rather unsteady climb, looking up to see Ockham crouching on the top of the wall. Like an alleycat he was studying the sloping expanse of the roof, seeking out a safe route across the fragile shingles. Unlike the huge free-standing shed on the opposite side of the yard, in which some months before I had observed Ockham at work, this was a lean-to joined to the side of the three-storey stone building that housed the yard’s offices.

  At last certain of his bearings, Ockham moved off his perch. Following his lead, I dragged myself on to the lip of the roof and looked up to catch a glimpse of him making rapid headway on the slope. Our forward planning was paying off.

  The high stern of the ship had provided an uninterrupted view of the yard and the shed roof above it. Although the Great Eastern was anchored a quarter of a mile or more downstream the distance was more than compensated for by the use of a sailor’s spyglass. Like a pair of surreptitious admirals we plotted a course across a roofbeam strong enough to support our weight and positioned as close as possible to the window we intended to use as a door.

  With arms outstretched for balance I carefully made my way along the line of the joist. My foot slipped on to a tile, causing it to shift slightly, but no harm was done and soon I was resting my hands against the cool stone. Keeping close to the wall, Ockham shuffled the last few feet to the window, where he pulled a chisel from the bag and began to work on t
he base of the frame. It was vital that our visit went undetected, for even a suspicion that we were taking any form of action against our opponents might be enough to incur their wrath. Several days earlier Ockham had visited the office under a false premise and made a rapid examination of the latch on the window. Now, he slipped the thin blade of the chisel into the frame and, moving it gently from side to side, succeeded in pushing the latch aside. Then he lifted the window open without displacing a single chip of wood or breaking any glass.

  Ockham pulled out the lamp and, making ready to light it, paused just long enough for me to close the shutters over the window. The ensuing darkness, although momentary, was total, so much so that the inky murkiness outside seemed like an overcast afternoon in comparison. The match flared and kissed the lamp into life, the light at first sputtering and uneven but then becoming bright and steady as the wick was adjusted. Russell’s office rushed out of the dark to greet us, the stark contrast between shadows and light imbuing the furniture with a fleeting quality that for a moment could have been mistaken for animation. The corner of the desk sniffed at my groin like an inappropriately behaved dog while a stray chair was just a foot away from stumbling into Ockham.

  Russell’s office was smaller than Brunel’s and the furnishings less accomplished examples of the cabinet-maker’s art. On the pinboards on the walls were large drawings, many of them depicting heavy machinery, which I could only guess to be the ship’s engines. Setting the lamp down on one of the cabinets, Ockham pulled open the top drawer of a plan chest and began to riffle through the drawings within. Every now and then he pulled a sheet part way out of the drawer and scrutinized it more closely before pushing it back in. Trusting Ockham to have at least some idea of what we were looking for, I took up position by the locked door and listened for any noise that might signal the approach of the watchman.

  Finding nothing of interest, Ockham closed the first drawer and opened the one below it to start the procedure over again but only flicked through half a dozen or so drawings before pushing it closed. Instead of opening the one immediately beneath it he dropped down to the bottom of the cabinet and pulled out a drawer almost level with the floor.

  ‘The drawings are stored in chronological order. What we’re after is a couple of years old,’ he said quietly, picking up the lamp and placing it on the floor beside him.

  I swore under my breath as the light flooding out across the floor revealed a trail of grey slippery footprints leading away from Ockham back to the window. Another set traced my own path, terminating in a smudge of damp clay at my own feet. It had been an act of singular stupidity to enter the room without previously removing our heavily soiled shoes. Stable doors and bolting horses came to mind as I took off my shoes and instructed Ockham to do the same. Unless we cleaned up what looked to be half of the foreshore of the Thames then all of our efforts at stealth had gone for nothing.

  With little choice but to abandon my post I stepped away from the door in stockinged feet and after taking Ockham’s shoes from him and placing them next to my own below the window looked for something with which to wipe the floor clean. A sheet of paper only served to smear the mud across the boards. With drastic action required I took off my coat, waistcoat and shirt before replacing the two outer garments. After ripping the shirt into half a dozen strips I dropped to my knees and like a hard-pressed charlady began to work away at the incriminating stains. To my relief the fabric was much more suited to the task and gradually the footprints began to disappear. Meanwhile, Ockham continued with his search, by now having moved on to another chest of drawers. I had expended all of my cleaning rags without completing the task and needed a new source of supply. My socks lasted for little more than one footprint apiece and I was damned if I was going to sacrifice any more of my wardrobe to the task.

  Before I could ask Ockham to make a contribution he called out, ‘This is it, I’ve found it.’ For the first time he had pulled a sheet entirely free from the drawer and although subdued to a half-whisper his excitement was unmistakable: ‘This has to be it.’

  The sock hit the floor like a soggy gauntlet and I padded over to take a look at the sheet draped across the gaping drawer. Ockham lifted the lamp and held it above his find, allowing me to study the various views, plans and elevations of what looked like a fish with the internal anatomy revealed. In truth, though, the many inked lines and curves meant very little; the object they created might as well have been one of Brunel’s cryptic Egyptian symbols. ‘What the hell is that?’

  His answer was not all I might have hoped for. ‘It looks like one of the old man’s cigars,’ he said with a chuckle. But there could be no denying the similarity – the cylindrical object bowed out in the middle and then tapered to a point at both ends. ‘But look,’ he added, finger jabbing at the paper, ‘there’s a screw.’

  There was indeed a propeller attached to one end, but Ockham immediately put paid to my suggestion that we were looking at a ship. ‘Water-borne perhaps, but far too small for a ship: look at the measurements. It’s only twelve feet from end to end – no longer than our rowing boat, and a good bit leaner in the beam.’

  With no time for further speculation I limited myself to just one more question. ‘What makes you so sure that this… this propeller-driven cigar is what we’re looking for?’

  Bringing his finger to rest over a small patch of paper free of ink, Ockham replied confidently, ‘Does that space look familiar to you? Whatever this is, it was designed to be powered by Brunel’s device.’

  I looked once again at the drawing. Where otherwise the thing was stuffed full of what looked like intestines and organs, there, in the belly of this strange cigar fish, was a distinctive egg-shaped void.

  I patted him on the back. ‘Good man. Do what you have to do. But first give me your shirt.’

  ‘You are joking?’

  ‘If we leave even the slightest trace of mud Russell will know we’ve been here.’

  Ockham stripped rapidly and handed me his shirt. Despite the fraying cuffs the effort involved in tearing the garment was a sure sign of quality not apparent in my own costume. With knees scraping the floorboards I continued wiping my way towards the door. Replacing his remaining upper garments, Ockham removed a sheet of tracing paper and a pencil from his bag and, placing the drawing on the cabinet top, began to mark every last detail of it, taking care not to press so hard as to leave a detectable impression.

  Engrossed in my own task it took me longer than it should have done to notice the fresh chink of light now illuminating my work. Entering the room through the narrow gap beneath the door, it was at first just a faint glimmer but grew brighter as the source drew closer.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ I hissed. My first instinct was to scramble away but, being so close to the door, there was too much risk of my movements being heard. Ockham was not constrained by the same concern and, snatching up the lamp, he scuttled for cover, kicking the rags across the floor as he went. The key turned in the lock just as the lamp was extinguished. The door swung towards me, forcing me to lean back on my haunches. With wrists touching ankles I felt like a trussed bird, which seemed apt, for if I fell backwards our goose would be well and truly cooked.

  The watchman took just one step into the room but the beam of light exhibited no such caution and barged straight on in, brushing first against the closed shutters and then the desk before travelling along the floor and climbing up the side of the cabinet to settle on the drawing, where it lingered for an uncomfortably long time. The door was now brushing against my knees, aching from cleaning the floor, and only the support provided by fingertips pressed into the floor behind me kept me from tumbling backwards.

  For what seemed an age the light remained fixed on the top of the cabinet but then the watchman pulled the door shut, decapitating the shaft of light and toppling the room back into darkness. Listening to the footsteps recede down the corridor, I succumbed to the overwhelming urge to settle on to my backside, my cracking
knuckles and every other joint in my body screaming with relief.

  ‘Just as well you cleaned up that mud, Phillips,’ said the cheerful voice from behind the desk, ‘even if it did cost the shirt off my back.’ The sulphur tip of a match flashed and the lamp exploded back into life. Without waiting for the flame to settle Ockham strode confidently back to the cabinet and resumed his labours.

  ‘Almost finished here,’ he said. ‘But I still have no idea what this thing is. What little text there is isn’t much help either.’

  I stood for a while with my ear to the door, listening out for the sound of returning footsteps. Ockham reassured me that the watchman would descend to a lower floor via the stairs at the end of the corridor rather than retrace his steps but only when I was certain that he had done so did I join him at the planning chest.

  ‘Don’t engineers ever make anything obvious?’ I asked.

  ‘Not if they want to keep their ideas to themselves.’

  Ockham’s pencil hung in mid-air for a while as the draughtsman assured himself that nothing was missing. Just to make certain, he lifted up one corner of the top sheet and tutted when a small detail on the original failed to show up on the copy. The sheet was pressed flat again and the error rectified with a last flourish of the pencil. ‘Finished,’ he announced.

  ‘Time to get out of here.’

  Ockham rolled up the copy and returned the original to the drawer while I checked the floor for any stray fragments of shirt. Only then did it dawn on me that the muddy footprints I had gone to such great lengths to wipe from the floor would also be marking our route along the rooftop. Anyone looking out of the window the following day would be sure to see the evidence of our visit. There was nothing else for it – we would have to remove as much as we could on our return trip. With the lamp snuffed out I pulled open the window shutters and scrambled, shoes in hand, back out on to the roof, which, I was delighted to discover, was at that moment being pelted by cleansing rain. Concerned that the results of his labours not be washed away with the mud I whispered back to Ockham, ‘Make sure that drawing is covered.’