The Cogspeare Conspiracy (The Cogspeare Chronicles Book 1)

by Valentina S. Grub

  Amadeus sighed. “Mother is going to kill us.”

  Chapter 58:

  “What the hell do you mean?” Cornelius slammed his hand against the window. Ordinarily it would have shattered with the force of his under-exercised temper, but thanks to his blast-proof modifications it barely trembled. Not so for Sebastian and Edwina, who were practically fluttering with hysterics.

  Magnus sighed and held up the piece of paper from the other side of the window.

  “What does a dead miner have to do with quarantining all of you?” Erasmus grabbed the paper and began to write furiously. When he held up the paper, all anyone could see were scribbles.

  “When can you come out?” asked Sebastian.

  “We’re coming in!” exclaimed his mother. Everyone behind the glass waved their hands furiously, no!

  “I didn’t know you can read lips,” Minerva said.

  “It’s a little thing, but you’d be surprised how often it comes in handy to see what the opposing counsel has to say behind your back.”

  “This isn’t working,” said Amadeus, taking the pen and paper. He wrote and showed it to the outsiders. They read it and ran.

  “Where are they going?”

  “Around to the mews to use the pneumatic tubes; at least then we can have a civilized conversation.”

  “Good,” Erasmus clapped his twin on his shoulder as they all went to the hallway, where a secret panel revealed a horn-like speaker and matching receiver. “Then you can break the news about Quintus.”

  The horn suddenly blasted and Amadeus flipped the level activating the pneumatic tubes.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  “Son? Is that you?” said a small, tinny rendition of Cornelius’s furious voice.

  “Yes, specifically Amadeus, father.”

  “What the devil is going on over there? And what’s this about a dead body? I thought I told Erasmus to keep his examinations confined to medical school from now on? And where is Quintus?”

  “Noticed his absence, did they?” grumbled Erasmus, taking a swig from the third decanter, usually kept in an ugly sideboard. He knew that there were at least two more hiding about and was determined to find them.

  Meanwhile, Amadeus told the audience in the mews an abridged version of the night’s activities, merely saying that Quintus was a bit banged up and was lying down.

  “I knew that something wasn’t right when the door was locked!” Edwina cried, now openly sobbing through the tubes. “How could you let this happen, Magnus? First the explosion, now this! It’s really unconscionable, and especially with a guest! Why, what Minerva must think of us. And it was such a lovely opera this evening too and…”

  “Mother, that’s completely unfair!” Amadeus hollered back. “Magnus had nothing to do with it, except for it being his case, and all the time he’s been very responsible. Now you should really calm down, because we’re all fine-” He was gently pushed out of the way by his father.

  “Told you I could get in quickly. Good job with the talking distraction, my dear. Now Edwina, just make sure everyone stays in the mews, and tell the staff what’s happened.”

  “Father!” gasped Magnus, “what are you doing here? I mean, how did you get in?”

  “Son, I built this house, twice. If I want to get in or out, I will. We shall re-communicate in one hour.” He flipped the switch off.

  “Right, now tell me the whole story, lads.”

  “Well…” they all began, and continued to talk, discuss, debate and interrupt until Cornelius held up his hand.

  “I do believe I have a general understanding of what’s been happening. And as much as I would like to say you were overcautious, you showed good judgment, Erasmus. Erasmus? Erasmus!” he yelled, jarring his son awake from where he was leaning on a pillar, lightly snoring.

  “We are going to do some tests to see if, and how, contagious this is. Erasmus and Amadeus, take Mr. Craggs upstairs to my lab.”

  “But that’s on the fourth floor!”

  “Erasmus, I don’t think you’ll be feeling any pain for a while. The fourth bottle is behind the mantelpiece.” And as his son went to get another libation, Cornelius, Magnus and Minerva went to check on Quintus.

  After his intense operation, the patient had been moved back to the drawing room, where the lights were low and the fire built up to keep him comfortable. He was deeply asleep, though restless. Cornelius put a large, scarred hand on his forehead.

  “Who could have done this, Magnus? Who would have wanted to kill Quintus?”

  “I’m almost positive that Craggs was the intended target, sir.”

  “Then why would they shoot again at Quintus?”

  “Perhaps they missed?” Cornelius paused, then added, “You boys look so alike, particularly in the dim light of Tungsten Square, that I wouldn’t be surprised if you were the target, Magnus.”

  “Oh, that’s a comfort,” Minerva interjected, surprising both father and son. “But in either case, you must at least suspect that Clinton is behind it.” Magnus tried to act surprised, but his gut told him there was a very real possibility that it was the truth, based on Clinton’s attitude, power and funds. And he very much doubted that the miners had even remotely similar resources.

  “In any case, we’re housebound until we can figure out what happened to Craggs. I would make yourselves comfortable.”

  Chapter 59:

  Dawn was thinking of making an appearance when Minerva jerked out of an uncomfortable doze. She looked around blearily, and realized that she was in Quintus’s room. The patient was on his bed, sleeping deeply. Magnus was standing by the window with his back to her, watching the smog become redder in the morning light.

  “Did you sleep at all?” she asked with a scratchy voice. He turned and shook his head.

  “I was just about to go up to see if they’ve made any progress with their tests,” he lied, having been perfectly content to watch her sleep. “Do you need anything?” Already half-way out the door, Minerva suddenly called him back.

  Quintus had begun to stir, and though his eyes were unfocused, he gasped Magnus’s name.

  “Here, drink some water,” Minerva held a glass to his lips. He drank a little, but then pushed it out of the way once Magnus came to the other side of his bed. He grabbed his brother’s arm with a surprisingly strong grip.

  “How is Craggs?”

  “More importantly, Quintus, how are you feeling?” she quickly intervened.

  “Craggs is dead,” Magnus answered, getting a dark look from the lady.

  “Damn,” Quintus sighed. “I was afraid of that when I didn’t hear him move after the shots. Look, he came here because he needed to see you, Magnus. He said that his son died, and that he could be free to help you now.”

  “Did he say anything else, Quintus? Anything at all?” he demanded.

  “Now that’s enough, Magnus! Can’t you see that he’s hurt and needs to recuperate in peace and quiet?”

  “Then damn it, he’s in the wrong house!” he swore. “And just because you’re together doesn’t mean you need to fawn over him. Anything else at all?” he turned back to the sick bed. Quintus shook his head.

  “Alright, get some rest, then.” He left the room, but not without Minerva hot on his heels.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Magnus?” she stormed as soon as they shut the door. “Your brother’s just been shot and you were interrogating him like…like a-”

  “- like a lawyer, Minerva. That’s what I am, and I need all the information I can get before I make a decision.”

  “I was going to say that you’re acting like a policeman, but now that you mention it, you are acting like a lawyer interrogating someone on the stand. But he’s your brother!”

  “Don’t you dare suppose that I’m unaware of Quintus’s status” he shot back, “but it isn’t acting. I am a barrister; this is who I am.” He quickly turned as he felt a wave of anger rise, but he couldn’t take a couple of steps before Minerva�
��s words halted him.

  “What do you mean? We’re not together. Why would you think that?”

  “You were both so ‘tired’ the other night, and I saw you slip out…I deduced that you two were…” She snorted.

  “I find Quintus amusing but I would never see him in that way. My God, Magnus, why are you like this?” He spun around, and his eyes were dense steel. She took a step back.

  “You ask too much,” he whispered.

  “No, I don’t think anyone has asked you enough. I’m a barrister too, and this is what we do, isn’t it?” she threw his words back at him. “Was it the explosion? The deafness and scarring? Because others are much more disfigured and not so heartless.”

  “The explosion was just the beginning!” he snarled. “Do you know what they did to me after the explosion, after the dozens of doctors and nurses prodded me and sewed me and scared me until I couldn’t breathe. Do you know what they did?”

  Minerva could only shake her head.

  “Nothing! Not a bloody thing!” he shouted. “They sent me off to boarding school, like every other young lad, and everyone pretended that life could go blithely on; but it couldn’t! Not for a little boy who was burned and deaf!” His chest heaved, and he gulped for air. He ran both hands through his hair, making it stand on end. He had never so much resembled his mad scientist father as he did then.

  “It was four days before the other boys began to jeer at me, and the older ones beat me if I didn’t hear something they said. It escalated to the point where they would throw freezing water on me when I was asleep, then tie a sack-cloth around my head to keep me in the dark,” his voice cracked, but he didn’t seem to care. “They- they poured anything they could get their hands on into my barely-healed ear, so that even now Declan has to make special contraptions for me to even begin to hear.”

  “And the teachers?” Minerva whispered. Magnus coughed out what was meant as a laugh.

  “They were the worst! They whipped me when I couldn’t answer a question that I hadn’t heard, and they disbelieved me when I told them about the others. And I wrote and wrote and wrote to my parents, begging them to come and take me home, but they never came,” he hung his head. “They never came. For six months I rotted there, every day and night a hell, and they never came.

  “Of course, it came out later that the school had never sent my letters home, and had never delivered theirs to me. And when my mother and father came to pick me up for the holidays and saw the state I was in I believe my father swore that he would built a bomb made of spesium and torch the place,” he laughed, slightly more humanly. “But by then I was having nightly terrors, and even though the hearing in my right ear had returned, the scarring on my left side never healed as it should have done. So yes, Minerva, I am scarred and irreparable. I don’t want order; I need it so that I can have control over things as I never had it before. And if that makes me an inhuman beast, so be it.”

  She was quiet for a moment, but finally replied, “And what about me? Am I a rotten apple?” If she had asked it petulantly or defiantly, he might have just walked away. But with her simple gaze and naïve conviction, he could only swallow and hoarsely reply, “No. God, no.”

  He couldn’t stand to see her face, flushed with pity and anger. The woman he loved was disgusted by the automaton that his heart had atrophied to. He turned and practically ran up the stairs.

  Minerva stood in the hallway, overwhelmed by the information and emotions roiling through her, and the family she had suddenly found herself quarantined with.

  Chapter 60:

  Erasmus, Amadeus and Cornelius were crouched behind one of the laboratory workstations. They peered at the spesium-laden Petri dish through their large gas masks.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?”

  “What did you say?” Amadeus lifted his mask and repeated himself.

  “Of course I am!” replied his twin indignantly.

  “That’s what he said before he blew up the bathroom.”

  “Don’t exaggerate; it was only the upstairs loo.”

  “Well, boys, at least we learned to make toilet plungers without spesium-enhanced rubber. Now what say we get going, eh?”

  They replaced their masks and used a fishing rod to lower a severed finger from the late Mr. Craggs into the dish. They crouched and waited for the boom.

  Chapter 61:

  Some years ago Mr. Cogspeare felt that he needed to bond more with his fifth son, and so they had made renovating the mews their pet project. Since it was in their contracts that they would never reside in the house, the staff had been moved into the Dorchester Hotel.

  The result had been an utterly unremarkable exterior, and an interior decorated like a bordello. Dark plush velvet lined the floors and walls, and the chairs and settee in the common room were covered in black lace. Each of the six miniscule bedrooms off the common room were given coloured themes, and overall the entire place had an unreal air, enhance by the faceted luminescence tubing.

  At the end of that summer, when the staff had been shown their revamped quarters, Mr. Steamins had been at the brink of apoplexy.

  “But sir,” Mrs. Bunsen had exclaimed, “You know where our girls come from. It might give them ideas!”

  “It might give us ideas too, cherie,” Bongout had nudged her.

  “See what I mean?” she smacked him with her reticule.

  But eventually, everyone became rather fond of their plush little mews, even Steamins, though he would never admit to it.

  The only concession to practicality was the pneumatic speaking tube installed in the wall of the common room. Upon her arrival in the wee hours of that morning, Edwina had installed herself next to it and hadn’t moved. Declan and Sebastian were always close by.

  “But Mr. Steamins, what should we do? They’ve taken over our house and home!” exclaimed Pansy, the first housemaid. She, Mrs. Bunsen, Chef Bongout and Steamins were huddled in a corner beneath a garish painting of the queen.

  “Quiet, Pansy,” Mrs. Bunsen commanded, suddenly looking uncomfortably like their monarch. “That’s no way to speak about Mrs. Cogspeare, after all she’s done for you. And be grateful that the two gentle boys are with her, and not the other hellions!”

  They all peeked over at the trio, standing by the wall of mullioned windows whose view of the house was obscured by a small grove of poplar trees. Edwina paced back and forth, her tasselled train in a tizzy.

  “What could be taking them so long? Truly, how long do a few simple tests take?”

  “Quite some time, I believe,” Declan, sitting next to Sebastian, replied calmly. “First they would have to retrieve viable samples, then they would have to construct the test, carry out the test, which might take a few hours-”

  “- Oh Declan, how can you be so reasonable at a time like this?!”

  Sebastian leaned over to his brother and whispered, “I knew the opera was a bad idea.”

  Steamins came over to the small group and stood straight. “Madam, you know that I and the entire staff are at your entire disposal as always, and will do anything to help you through this difficult time.” Edwina turned and managed a small smile.

  “Thank you Steamins. I just wish I knew what was going on in there.” She looked at the old standing clock, about to chime one o’clock. “I just hope that they remember to have luncheon. Magnus gets so huffy if he doesn’t eat on time. He gets that from his father, you know. Cornelius is utterly worthless without five small meals per day.”

  Just as she was about to begin pacing again, she looked up at Steamins, and then Mrs. Bunsen.

  “There are only four of you here. Where is Lily?”

  For a moment, Steamins may have been on the brink of discomposure. But he quickly reclaimed his sangfroid and replied,

  “I am most sorry I didn’t inform you sooner, madam. However, I didn’t wish to bother you with trivial domestic matters when you family is in dire straits. When I returned for my half-day off yesterday, I f
ound her few belongings packed, and a note saying that she was permanently leaving your service.” He nodded, obviously ashamed for his dereliction of duty.

  “What a shame,” Edwina sighed, “I just hope that she doesn’t end up on the streets again.”

  Chapter 62:

  “Shouldn’t you be working, my dear?” asked Clinton in an oozing tone, leering over Lily. She was sitting in an armchair in front of his desk, and with James behind her, there was no escape.

  “Yesterday I came back early from the half day off and there was a dead man in front of the house, and then they closed it off! I’m not staying in a house that’s been closed off like a ward in a hospital! My mother was a nurse in the Crimea, so I knows I don’t want to be anywhere nears there!”

  At the mention of the dead body and quarantine, Clinton looks sharply at James. “So you took care of it, I see. Now we only need to control the fallout. My dear,” he looked down at the girl again, “do you have anything else to report?” She shook her head, feeling suddenly apprehensive.

  “Now that is a shame, because I am afraid you have outlived your utility.” He nodded at James, and turned away as his henchman dragged her out the door.

  Chapter 63:

  “Well, this is all I could dig up,” Amadeus announced as he hefted a tray of half-decimated poultry onto the dining room table. Everyone stared at it.

  “What the hell is that?” wondered Cornelius as he wandered in after visiting the sick-room.

  “It’s one of Bongout’s recipes that he’s trying to perfect,” explained Amadeus, picking up a scrawled note stuck under a half-feathered wing. “Roughly translated, it says that it’s reconstructed swan.”