The Custodian of Marvels

by Rod Duncan

  “Could you run if pressed?”

  He stared blankly at me.

  “Then could you open a lock for us so we could hide?”

  He held out his fat hands and examined them, front and back, as if they were unfamiliar objects. “Maybe,” he said.

  I grabbed his arm and guided him to the door of the workshop. A model of a key hung from a bracket projecting above our heads. I’d seen the same arrangement at Jeremiah’s house.

  “Open this one for me,” I said.

  I expected him to extract a set of lockpicks from his pocket. Instead he put his hand on the door and pushed. It swung inwards.

  “Don’t you people ever lock your own homes?”

  “No,” he said.

  We were inside now. I closed the door behind us, shutting out what little light there had been.

  “You’re locksmiths,” I hissed. “Why not lock up?”

  “A locked door gets broken down. Setting traps is better.”

  “There were traps in your workshop?”

  “It’s alright,” he mumbled. “You didn’t try to steal.”

  I put that thought to the side and said, “We need light.”

  There was a whisper of cloth, then a distinctive rattle and a strike. Light flared from a lucifer to my right. Jeremiah angled it down to let the flame grow, then held it above his head. My eyes darted around the walls, locating windows. All were shuttered from within. Then I began to take in the room itself. It was of similar size to Jeremiah’s workshop. Indeed, the only differences I could see were in the arrangement of the working space and the tool racks. Jeremiah’s benches and tables had been set around the edge of the room. The Grand Master had gathered his together to form a single large surface in the centre.

  The match died. When, after a pause, nothing had happened, I reached out and gave Jeremiah a prod in the ribs.

  “What?” he mumbled.

  “More light!”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  Another flame spluttered to life, revealing his face. His pupils were like black saucers. This time I found an oil lantern, hanging on a hook near the door. A third match had it lit, though I kept the wick turned low. It wouldn’t do to have cracks of light showing in the courtyard.

  “Are you awake?” I asked, prodding him again.

  He jerked upright and opened his eyes. “Wide awake.”

  “We need to get away from here. One of those windows should let us out at the side of the house,” I pointed.

  “Mmm.”

  “Might it have traps?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What will the traps look like?”

  He shuffled towards the tables in the middle of the room. I followed, holding the lantern high. He stopped half a pace short and wobbled slightly. There were rectangles of brass on a sheet of paper on the bench nearest us. They reminded me of pieces of cloth laid out on a dress pattern. Jeremiah took the lantern from me and moved it left to right.

  “There,” he said, pointing to nothing that I could see.

  “What?”

  “A wire.”

  He shifted the lantern again and this time I caught a glint as fine as a thread of spider’s silk stretched across the air in front of me.

  “What does it do?”

  “Dunno. But don’t snag it.”

  He sidestepped, maintaining his distance from the edge of the bench. Near the corner, he stopped and got down on his knees. I crouched to see what he was seeing, bringing my eyes level with the surface.

  “There,” he said, and yawned.

  In front of us were what appeared to be the innards of a clock. I moved my head across closer to his and then back, but could see no wires in the air.

  “Down there,” he said, pointing to the base, which sat a fraction higher from the bench at one corner.

  “Spring trigger,” he said.

  I straightened myself, choosing not to ask what might have happened if we’d moved it. Jeremiah remained on his knees, staring at the clockwork. I was about to prod him once more, but the rigidity of his posture made me hold back. He lowered the lamp towards the bench and inched it forwards, rotating it slightly so that more light fell on the cogs. His lips moved, but no words came out. The bizarre thought came to me that he might be praying. But then I caught a word and realized he was counting under his breath.

  When he was easing back from the mechanism, I asked, “What did you see?”

  “A pendulum spring.” He pointed one of his sausage-like fingers. “And there’s an escapement. Then a train of cogs. It’s a timer.”

  “But what were you counting?”

  “The teeth on the cogs.”

  “We need to be gone,” I said, taking his hand.

  “Divide if it’s gearing down. Multiply if it’s gearing up.” His words were still slurred, but there’d been more focus about him since we entered the workshop.

  I led him around towards windows that would face the side of the building, making sure I held myself back from the benches, as he had done.

  “Focus on the shutters,” I said. “Tell me if there are wires or springs or anything like that.”

  He held up the lantern in front of a window and moved it around. He angled his head to look into the cracks between the shutters and the frame. “There’s just that wire,” he said at last, drawing a line in the air.

  I could see nothing.

  He prodded at the blackness with his finger.

  “It’s slack,” he said.

  “Meaning?”

  “We can just unhook it.”

  He reached to the left of the window and made some small manipulation. Only when he held the thing over his palm could I see that there was indeed a wire with a neat loop at the end.

  “Douse the light,” I said, then, holding my breath, I swung the shutter inwards.

  No bell chimed and no gun fired. I breathed again and opened the other shutter.

  Jeremiah was growing sharper by the minute. His examination of the sash window was quicker. On his nod, I hefted it up. It slid smoothly on its counterweights. I climbed out and found myself in the alley to the side of the Grand Master’s residence. There being no watchers that I could see, I beckoned Jeremiah, who clambered out to join me. Then he reached back in and reset the wire. I watched as he pulled the inside shutters back into place.

  “It was a fine clock,” he whispered.

  Having lowered the window, I took his hand and started leading him towards the rear of the building. Keeping to the backstreets would be safest at first. But once we’d put some distance between ourselves and the Grand Master, we’d be less conspicuous mingling with other evening walkers on the main thoroughfares.

  “A fine clock,” Jeremiah said again, his voice sharper.

  “Good,” I said.

  “It belongs in a timer lock.”

  We had turned the corner of the building. Light streamed from a row of windows on the other side of the alley. I led Jeremiah along next to the wall.

  “I counted the teeth on the cogs,” he said.

  “I saw you do it.”

  “So I know how long the timer runs for.”

  We crossed the street, entering another alleyway. Every step now took us further from the Patent Office agents that I feared had been summoned.

  “The escapement allows one click for a second.”

  “That’s interesting,” I said, though I had no sense of what he was really trying to tell me.

  “I counted the teeth on the cogs, so I know the number of seconds. It’ll run for six hundred and twenty-one of them.”

  We turned another corner and came under the glow of a line of streetlamps. I began to open my stride.

  “So, you’re telling me that he’s building a lock that stays shut for exactly that time?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how much time does that make?”

  “It makes ten minutes and twenty-one seconds,” he said. “I just thought you should know.”

 
CHAPTER 23

  October 10th

  To solve a mystery you must ask the right question. To keep a mystery you must have them ask the wrong one.

  The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook

  We didn’t go back directly to the tenement. Our first stop was the Crown and Dolphin on Cable Street. I sat Jeremiah in a private booth and ordered wine for myself and strong coffee for him. Then, once my heartbeat had slowed and his had speeded, I set off back to the rookery.

  Tinker was playing by the yellow light spilling from a doorway, kicking a bladder with some other boys. On seeing me, he ran to my side, whereupon I gave him a message to carry, then headed back to the public house. Fabulo must have sprinted all the way after me, because I was scarcely back in the booth with Jeremiah before he burst into the saloon bar.

  He clambered up onto the bench, out of breath and with a smell of fresh sweat on him. “Is it done?”

  “It’s done,” said Jeremiah.

  “But it’s not good,” I said. “There was too much suspicion for anything I could have said to make things right. We can never go back there. The Grand Master wanted to hand us over to the Patent Office. He didn’t say it, but I’m certain. And the fact that we ran away will put him doubly on guard.”

  “Then stay away we shall!” said Fabulo. “In a few days we’ll have quit London forever.” He looked first at Jeremiah, then at me. “But there’s more bad news in your eyes. Damn it all to Hell! Tell it to me straight.”

  So I told him of our escape through the workshop and of the clock mechanism laid out on the bench. Then Jeremiah filled in the detail of what he’d seen – the number of cogs, the number of teeth, the escapement and the spring. I wondered how many men in England could have made the same diagnosis from such a fleeting look.

  “There’s only one place they’re going to use it,” he said. “I’m sorry, little man. You found a weakness in the Patent Court. Nine minutes and twenty-one seconds between the clocks. And another minute for the guards to march from the gate. But they’re not so stupid. And now they’ve made a new lock to put on the door for when the guards aren’t there.”

  “But why must they do it now?”

  Jeremiah looked down at his hands. “It’s my fault.”

  Fabulo shook his head, as if trying to clear water from his ears. He was usually quick to make connections. But these were connections he didn’t want to make.

  “There’s no fault,” I said. “But there is a cause. By not attending to his duties in the guild, Jeremiah raised their concern. As far as they knew, he’d disappeared. And him knowing the secrets he knows. So they told the Patent Office, who began searching. When they didn’t find him, they looked for any of his known contacts. Even me. And for all they know, I’m just a contact of a contact. It’s a serious matter for them. Serious enough to increase the security. So they commissioned a new lock. One that can’t be picked.”

  “Can’t be picked?” Fabulo seemed unable to accept the evident truth. “You’re a master locksmith! You wouldn’t tell me it’s impossible.”

  “It’s a lock with no key,” said Jeremiah. “There’s nothing to open it but time itself. All you can do is wait for six hundred and twenty-one seconds. Then it springs open. But by then, our time’s used up.”

  “You said the lock is sitting in the Grand Master’s workshop. That means it’s not on the door yet.”

  Jeremiah was shaking his head. “The clock was assembled. And he’d the casing ready. He’d have fitted it soon enough. But with me showing myself and then running… It’ll be on the door by tomorrow. It may be there tonight.”

  Every question Fabulo presented to Jeremiah, I’d already asked on our long walk back. I knew the answers before they came. And with each, Fabulo crumpled a little further.

  “There must be a way!” This was no more a question. He was pleading with the actuality. “We’ve spent most everything,” he said.

  Jeremiah slid himself out of the booth. “I’ll get him a glass.”

  I put my hand on Fabulo’s. “It was better we found it this way – before risking our necks.”

  “But what am I to tell the others?”

  “The truth.”

  “It’ll kill them.”

  “It was a good plan,” I said. “But that was never the reason they followed you. Now the plan’s broken, they’re not going to leave you either.”

  “They’d have been better never to have known me!”

  “You told me once that Tinker needed to belong and that I’m the one he belongs to. Well, it’s the same for Lara and Ellie. And Yan. Except they belonged to the circus. That was never the big top. You know that. It wasn’t the beast wagons. It’s the people.”

  “It was Harry.”

  “It’s a family, not one person. Lara and Ellie and Yan and you. And now Tinker and me.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said, the words escaping from deep in his chest like a sob. “It’s Harry himself they want to follow. This plan – it was the last thing they had of him. We all clung to it like a log. Like we’d drown if we let go. But the ship’s sunk and here we are. And now the log’s sunk too. We’ve got nothing left.”

  I might have argued, but I wasn’t his audience. He was purposefully coaxing himself deeper into a place where the light couldn’t reach. There were no words I could say that would change the truth. The plan was dead and there was nothing that would ever replace it.

  Perhaps it’d been the lingering effects of the opium that caused Jeremiah not to rage. Acceptance had grown in him with the gradual inevitability of a rising flood. Lara and Ellie responded with tears, and then with concern for Fabulo, rubbing his back and stroking his hair, as a mother might comfort a poorly child.

  It was Yan, usually the quiet one, who needed someone to blame. First he shouted at Jeremiah, accusing him of betrayal. And when our locksmith didn’t rise to the bait, he turned on Fabulo.

  “You said we should trust you. And now this! What plan have you got for this? Don’t say you haven’t got one. We went along with you. Trusted you! How much have we spent? Chasing a crazy dream?”

  “I never said it was going to be easy,” said Fabulo.

  “When have things ever been easy? How much money have we got left?”

  “Enough to get us out of here.”

  “And how much is that? We had treasure once. Remember that? When Harry was here. He knew how to treat us. Show me what we’ve got now. Go on! Get out the watches. Let’s see what we’ve spent.”

  If Fabulo had been at his best he might have talked his way out of it. But the fight had gone from him. At first he refused. But Yan took hold of his collar and began to shake him. I would have stepped forwards to intervene, but Lara grabbed my hand. I let her hold me back. Perhaps the fight had gone out of all of us.

  When Yan let go, Fabulo fell to the floor. Instead of springing back and confronting the giant, he crawled on hands and knees to the small pile of his possessions, from among which he pulled the shagreen box. Yan snatched it from his hand and popped the catch. I watched as the bristling anger on his face collapsed into despair.

  “This is it? All the others sold?”

  He turned the box for us all to see. Of the twenty shallow depressions in the satin lining, nineteen were now empty. A single watch remained – the brass chronometer of which Fabulo had been unaccountably fond. All the gold and platinum treasures had been sold. All the diamonds and rubies.

  “This? This worthless thing? Why did it have to be this one we’ve got left?”

  “I was keeping it for us to use,” said Fabulo, his voice quiet.

  “But that’s typical! It’s gold for everyone else and tin for us.” He plucked the watch from its place in the box, shook it and held it to his ear. “It doesn’t even keep time!”

  Fabulo got up off his knees. “It’s the best one of all. That’s why I didn’t sell it. We would have used it when we were in the Patent Court.”

  “Can’t you even get that right? It’s an hour
fast if it’s a minute.”

  “It keeps perfect time!”

  I pulled my hand away from Lara and I stepped between the two men. “Give it to me,” I said.

  I put it to my ear, as Yan had done. The ticking was clear and regular. I examined the dial. It showed twenty minutes short of eight o’clock. “What makes you say it’s wrong?” I asked.

  “The bell of St John’s church last struck for six.”

  “Men will argue over nothing,” said Lara. “We’re all alive. What else matters?”

  She took the watch, laid it back in its place and snapped the box closed. “We stole those watches. We can steal more. If the locksmith wants to join us, there’ll be no shortage of treasure we can have. Maybe we start small again. Yan juggling knives and axes. Fabulo with cartwheels and clowning. Let’s go to France or Italy. I’ve heard it’s always sunny there.”

  Yan’s shoulders slumped. Fabulo nodded. Ellie stood, took the giant’s hand and kissed it.

  “She’s right,” said Fabulo. “Lizzy, could your boat make it across the channel to France?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “If it was very calm, perhaps.”

  Each of them looked at the others. I could see no disagreement. Just like that, it seemed a new plan was resolving out of their despair. But for me there could be no such resolution. The duke would never give up his search. One day his agents would find me. My only hope lay in the records of my father’s trial, which lay in the storerooms under that mighty court building.

  Yan cocked his head. I realised he was listening to the chiming of a distant clock. It was the three quarter hour. I counted the strikes and saw that Fabulo was doing the same. After six strikes it fell silent.

  “There!” said Yan in triumph. “A quarter to seven, not a quarter to eight!”

  “Impossible!” said Fabulo, snatching the shagreen box from Lara’s hand. He took out the watch and examined it. “But it’s always kept perfect time.”

  “It still keeps perfect time,” said Ellie. “You forgot to change it when the clocks went back.”

  Fabulo slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “I’m an idiot,” he said, twisting the knob to turn the hands by an hour. He clipped the box closed again and slipped it among his possessions on the floor. The others were already turning away.