Fiendish Schemes Page 32

  That the torches were not being used merely for illumination was soon made evident to me. The sharp, unmistakable noise of shattering glass reached my ear; beyond the close-pressed bodies of the mob, I saw flaring brands tossed inside a number of shops and residences. Soon, flames and sparks were swirling up into the night sky, a sight which served to further elevate the mood of the howling crowd.

  At last, I glimpsed an opportunity to venture forth on my errand. Enough of the mob had passed by before me, that through the straggling remnant I could see the dark alleys across from me. From my long-ago upbringing in London, I was familiar enough with the district that I could envision a circuitous route that would enable me to bypass the rioting populace and safely reach my destination. Summoning up my courage, I dashed into the street, shouldering my way past the mob’s stragglers, and succeeded at diving into the unlit passageway beyond.

  While I might have initially underestimated the difficulties involved in fetching the Vox Universalis key, I prudently ensured that I would not similarly dismiss the mob’s ability to do me harm. I was familiar enough with the nature of human enthusiasms, so easily stoked to the incendiary point, to know that while I might have once escaped those attentions both mirthful and murderous, a second encounter could not be guaranteed to go so well. Very likely, at a certain point in their mingled inebriation and vandalism, they would commence hanging one another just as readily as any perceived member of the genteel classes who fell into their hands.

  Keeping a sharp ear out for the sounds of the mob’s revelry, I navigated a course as widely diverging from its course as possible. My progress was made faster by the fact of the rioters having already bestowed their efforts on the districts that lay before me. Once having reduced them to rubble and ash, they had quickly abandoned them for fresher fields, with windows yet unsmashed and buildings unrazed.

  In short order, I found myself picking my way through Clerkenwell, in which my old watchmaker’s shop had been located years before. I saw no indication of it now having been converted to other uses, so thoroughly had the area been transformed—first by the invading advent of Steam, then by the mob’s rampage. The great pipes which coursed through the once familiar streets had been hammered asunder, their assailants apparently dismissive of their chances of being scalded to death by the gouts of heated vapour gushing forth. The resulting effect on the depopulated scene was of some industrial disaster, perhaps a crashing wreck upon the railway lines. I covered my ears against the mingled hisses and shrieks; I would have been quickly deafened if I had not. Ducking beneath the jets of steam and crawling on my stomach when necessary, and with mist- sodden black ash clinging to my hands and face, I laboriously effected my passage to the district’s perimeter and the marginally less hazardous streets beyond.

  Continuing onward, I managed only through the greatest of prudence to avoid being scalded to death, mauled by various bands of rioters, or clubbed over the head by the constables futilely attempting to gain control of the London streets. At various moments in the course of my journey, I sought refuge behind various heaps of iron scrap, the detritus of the mob’s increasingly frenzied vendetta against all things relative to Steam; at others, the great hissing clouds of vapour filling the passageways afforded me sufficient cover to elude any who might have sought to impede my progress.

  At last, I spied my destination before me—Featherwhite House was but a few dozen paces or so away, with nothing blocking my path. I quickly broke into a run, anxious to reach the imposing structure before anything else could go amiss.

  In that simple endeavour, I was thwarted—I should scarcely have been surprised by that, given all that had happened thus far. No sooner had I attained the gate opening onto the street than I heard the now familiar discord of shattering glass and mingled shouts indicating the presence of some contingent of rioters. Worse, a flaring light fell across my face as I halted in my tracks. As I watched, fire and smoke issued forth from the lower windows of Featherwhite House. Before I could seek a hiding-place, a giddily hilarious mob rushed past, knocking me to the ground beside the lane curving toward the building’s ornate front door.

  “You’ve come too late—” Dazed, I felt a hand grasp mine, pulling me again to my feet. “Likely, you should be thankful for that!”

  By the light of the fire quickly engulfing the townhouse, I saw that I was being addressed by Royston, the foreman of those workers who had been engaged upon their various activities within Featherwhite House, chiefly to do with those devices created by my father which had been brought hither.

  “What . . .” I was grateful to have avoided being trampled by the mob—in my previous haste, I might have been able to discern their presence if their torches had not all been used for purposes of arson. “What do you mean?”

  “They’ve all fled!” Royston pointed to the burning structure with an outflung hand. “As they damn well should have!” Blood trickled down the man’s brow, from a wound he had no doubt suffered in his own encounter with the mob. “As you should as well!”

  Before I could elicit further information from the man, he had turned away and hurried from me, disappearing into the street’s flickering shadows.

  I was near enough to Featherwhite House that I could feel the heat from the flames quickly advancing through the ornate structure. There was no consideration of allowing that to deter me from approaching even more closely—not if I was to succeed in securing the object for which I had come all this way, under such dangerous circumstances.

  The massive front door stood ajar, giving me full view of the townhouse’s interior. It took but a second’s scrutiny, one upraised hand protecting my face, to determine that it was primarily the outer walls that were engulfed in flame—the mob’s fiery brands had not traveled more than a few feet through the smashed windows. I could see as well that the progress of the fire was to some degree retarded by the geysers of steam upwelling from the broken floorboards—at least some members of the mob, in their spiraling lust for destruction, had apparently turned their attentions to the detested machinery in the cellars. As I cringed back from the searing heat, a deafening explosion shook the building, an overheated boiler sending its sharp-edged fragments through the walls blackened by smoke.

  Not for the first time, I realized the advantage that sheer desperation gives one, when confronted by circumstances at which more reasonable minds would quail. Though possessed of no great amount of physical courage, and certainly less of it than the majority of men, I found myself diving into the flame-engulfed premises, heading for the central staircase.

  Blinded by the mingled smoke and steam, I availed myself of the carved wooden rail to pull myself upward. The structure had been so weakened by both the fire and the explosion from the cellars, that the rail swayed with every grasp of my hands, the steps beneath my feet yielding in a similarly precarious fashion. Looking above, I was able to discern the stairs’ mounting creak away from the point at which it attached to the next story. Fearful of being plunged to the burning wreckage below, I made even greater haste, throwing myself headlong past the final steps and onto the floor of the upper hallway to which I had directed myself.

  There having been only a relatively few occasions on which I had been inside Featherwhite House, it required some hurried investigation on my part, flinging open one door after another, to find the room which had been assigned as my temporary quarters. The diminished, smoke-filled air evoked fits of wracking coughs as I spotted my luggage still laid out on the narrow bench at the foot of the bed. Within moments I was inside the room, batting away a flurry of sparks with one hand as with the other I flung open the portmanteau’s battered lid.

  Even in as unfortunate circumstances as these, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the key to the Vox Universalis was where I had placed it, when I had first packed up my meager possessions and hied myself to London. So exact was its resemblance to the diagram I had obtained from Scape, there was no necessity for me to draw the paper from
my coat for confirmation. Instead, I seized upon the device itself, lifting it and holding it in both hands, gazing upon the thing with new understanding—

  For when I had grasped it before, it had been with the intention of employing it for my own self-destruction.

  I had then thought it to be some manner of pistol, crafted by my father so that its intricate workings were somehow capable of hurling a projectile from what had seemed to be its muzzle. No wonder that I had been unable, despite all my poking and prying at the machine, to cause it to send a round crashing through my skull! Even those minutely detailed separate objects that I had previously discerned within it, which I had assumed to be bullets, my previous familiarity with my father’s designs now informed me were but sub-mechanisms for altering the operations of the larger Vox Universalis device into which the key would be inserted. Their microscopic gears would interconnect with those larger than them, thereby producing the desired results, whatever those might be.

  If there had been sufficient air to breathe in the increasingly stifling room, I might almost have laughed at the recall of my earlier frustrations. But now I was gratified to an even larger extent, to have been informed of the device’s true purpose. The device trembled within my grasp, as though from its unlimited potentiality as well as the various mainsprings I had left wound before packing it away in my luggage. For it was not only the key by which my father’s voice-simulating construction could be set into operation—it was as well the key to my own fortunes and security.

  That was, of course, if I could find a way out of the fire-wracked building in which I presently stood.

  As I brought my gaze up from the precious construction in my hands, an ominous noise reached my ear—a great clattering, as of timbers tearing apart from each other, then collapsing as rubble to somewhere below. Clutching the key device to my chest, I hurried from the room. Merely by my stepping into the hallway, my worst apprehensions were confirmed—Featherwhite House’s central staircase had separated into its component elements, leaving a smokefilled vacancy where my route of escape had formerly stood.

  “Mr. Dower! Is it you—”

  While not completely startled by the collapse of the staircase— the event seemed in keeping with the general course of my fortunes—I was, however, taken by surprise at hearing a woman’s voice calling out to me. And a familiar one—I turned about and peered through the billowing clouds of smoke and steam. To my further astonishment, Lord Fusible’s daughter, Evangeline, stood but a few yards away from me.

  “What is it you are doing here?” There was no time for formalities—or for explanations. I hastened to her side and laid hold of one arm to prevent her from collapsing. “We must find a way out—immediately—”

  There was but little resistance on her part, so overcome was she by the thickening smoke. Her eyelids fluttered as she gasped for breath, her negligible weight pressed into the crook of my shoulder.

  “Wait—we cannot—” She managed to raise one limp hand and point to a room at the end of the hallway. “There is another—we must save—”

  There being no ready escape in the opposite direction, I bore her with me toward the door she had indicated. I had no idea of whom she spoke, but with any luck, it might be someone who could somehow assist us in making an exit from the burning townhouse.

  The door was already ajar; I kicked it farther open and peered inside. The room, previously unvisited by me, seemed to be some sort of private parlour, of the sort employed when a small group of individuals seek to converse amongst themselves, separate from whatever larger gathering might have been taking place downstairs. A claw-footed oaken table was littered with gentlemanly paraphernalia, half-empty glasses of port, grey-ashed cigars stubbed out or still emitting tendrils of smoke combining with the suffocating haze that hung low from the ceiling. The disordered state of the furniture, with chairs scattered about or knocked backward to the floor, indicated the hasty flight of whoever had been there. No doubt they had taken to their heels when the rioters had first besieged Featherwhite House.

  I spied the person of whom Evangeline had informed me. The possibility of aid from this source now seemed remote—the figure lay face downward before the room’s fireplace, a widening pool of blood seeping around his head. The edge of the stone mantelpiece above him was similarly reddened, as though it had been in some manner the cause of the man’s injury.

  Leaving Evangeline for the moment at the room’s doorway, I hurried into the room and knelt at the man’s side. As I rolled him onto his back, I found myself gazing with astonishment into the face of none other than Stonebrake. How he had been transported here, rather than having been annihilated, as I had presumed, in the explosion at Westminster Palace—such, I could not conjecture. However, it was quickly obvious to me that while he might have evaded death then, it had caught up with him now. The blow he had received to the corner of his brow had been sufficient to lay open his skull; no breath or other indicator of life was perceptible.

  Leaving Stonebrake’s corpse where it rested unmoving, I ran back toward the hallway and grasped Evangeline about the waist, before she could slip unconscious to the floor.

  “The servants’ access . . . there . . .” With a tilt of her head, she indicated a door, narrower than the rest, at the very end of the corridor. “That is how . . . I made my way up here. . . .”

  I carried her to the door and pushed it open with my shoulder. A pent-up billow of smoke escaped from it, driving me back, gasping and coughing. As the fumes partly dispersed, I managed to take a further look down the twisting stairway that had been revealed. No doubt it led to the kitchen and other service areas, from which the needs of the house’s proprietors had once been met. Sparks flew up into my face as I futilely attempted to discern the stairs’ terminus through the swiftly rising smoke.

  There was no other way. Glancing behind myself, I saw a column of flame roar upward where the house’s central staircase had been. It would be perhaps only a matter of minutes before the structure was completely engulfed, the hallway’s floor collapsing out from beneath our feet. I held Evangeline closer to myself and pulled her into the narrowly winding passage. She pressed her face to my chest and struggled to breathe, as we fought to make our awkward course to whatever safety we could find. . . .

  My eyes, stinging with smoke and heat, caught a fragmentary glimpse of sinks and carving tables, the appurtenances of domestic labours, when we at last stumbled out of the stairwell. The smoke was even thicker here, rolling in like a choking tide from what had been the house’s more elegant chambers. I spied an open exterior doorway, the night’s dark revealed beyond, and dragged Evangeline’s unresisting form through it.

  Fresh, cold air was gratefully received into my lungs. Evangeline raised her own face from my chest, and I could see her reviving as well. With my remaining strength, I half carried, half dragged her to the farthest reach of the overgrown garden to which we had escaped. I lowered Evangeline onto a stone bench at the end of an ornamental pond, then collapsed beside her.

  From here, we could both see the flames consuming Featherwhite House. The widening column of smoke obscured the stars above our heads. Without doubt, Stonebrake’s lifeless body was even now in the process of cremation within.

  Then, for a moment, I believed myself wrong about this and that somehow the miscreant had retained some trembling thread of life, sufficient to escape the building. I pushed myself upright on the bench, witnessing in astonishment a figure wrapped in fire and smoke, crawling with grim determination from the blackened margin of Featherwhite House’s walls. Within seconds, though, I realized that it was not Stonebrake I beheld, but the animated Orang-Utan of previous unpleasant encounters. Its tatty orange fur had been reduced to ashes, revealing the intricate mechanisms of its limbs and torso. Steam hissed from various apertures, as well as the hose trailing behind it. Damaged by the fire, the latter burst, ragged ends whipping about like beheaded snakes, then falling limp and inert to the ground. Deprived
of motive force, the Orang-Utan seemingly died as well, its jointed metal paws curling into rigid fists. The entire device rolled onto its side, the now lidless spherical eyes casting one last glance toward me before its interlinked apparatuses shuddered to an agonized halt.

  Another’s voice came more graciously to my ear.

  “I am indebted to you, Mr. Dower.” Rendered somewhat hoarse, Lord Fusible’s daughter reached over and squeezed my hand. “If not for you . . .” She left the remainder of the dire thought unspoken.

  “Anything I did—” I broke off my words, seized by a spasm of coughing. I then managed to speak the rest. “Was but that which any would have done.”

  “Then the world is not such an entirely wicked place as I had believed.” She gave me a wan smile, quickly extinguished by some more troubling consideration. “Though I fear that it is still sufficiently so, as to render all my chances of happiness beyond my reach! Better that you had left me where you had found me, or that my father’s faithful servants had let me drown, rather than saving me from the capsizing of that little boat in which I last conversed with you. If they had not aided me so, I might have continued on to a more felicitous realm.”

  “You are speaking nonsense.” To my own ear, my words sounded sterner and less sympathetic than I had intended—though perhaps they were better so. “You are young and with the greatest part of your life still before you. Time enough to think of the grave, and what lies beyond it, when you have reached my age. Though I must confess that I no longer contemplate those matters with as much enthusiasm as I formerly did.”