Julius and the Watchmaker (4 page)

‘I forgot all about it. There were so many strange things happening this evening,' said Julius before he could stop himself.
Drat
. He bent down to retrieve the key to give himself time to think.

‘What things may one ask?' said the professor.

‘Oh, nothing, just things, that's all.'

‘Did they have anything to do with a fellow by the name of Springheel, by any chance?'

‘I don't know what you mean, sir,' said Julius, trying to force the key into the yard door lock.

The professor lifted his pocketwatch from his waistcoat pocket and tried to read its face in the fading light. ‘Do you have the time?' he said.

Not again!
‘No sir. But it must be well past nine o'clock.'

‘Time is slipping away,' said the professor, fixing the boy with his blue-eyed stare. ‘Who knows what the morrow may bring the weary traveller?'

‘Er…yes…I mean, no.'

Julius opened the door. The professor stepped into the dark alley, turned and held out his hand. Julius's eyes blinked a few times before he remembered that he still had the golden key and the piece of paper. He shoved them into the professor's hand, hoping that would be the last of him.

The professor tipped his hat. ‘Thank you, young man. A pleasure to have made your acquaintance.' He strode away, swinging his cane and humming a tuneless tune. Julius watched him walk all the way to the end of the alleyway. There, by the light from a scullery window, he saw the professor stop beside the silhouette of a tall, broad-shouldered man also wearing a top hat.

Julius slammed the yard door and turned the key.
If he's going to vanish into thin air, as well, you don't want to know, Higgins.
Back inside, Mr Higgins handed Julius the calling card and hopped around in front of the fire, dancing a jig.

Professor Algernon P. Fox
Nalanda University
c/o Post Office Box 132 Kensington

‘Now that, my boy, was a
real
gentleman.'

‘Yes, the white cravat gave it away.'

‘That was a man of experience and breeding.'

‘…Who broke into our backyard.'

‘I think I can safely say that Mr Harrison's diary may well be the making of us,' said Mr Higgins, ignoring Julius.

‘You do?'

‘I do. Think of it—two fellows appear in the space of one day. Both more interested than they would like to admit in a diary about watchmaking, of all things. And, one of them bears the name of a protagonist in that very diary, which was written a hundred years ago. All very intriguing, if you ask me. No, Julius Caesar, there is a lot more to this diary than meets the eye. We'll keep the book under wraps. The longer they have to wait, the more they'll pay, he-he.'

Julius thought about the tall, broad-shouldered silhouette in the alley.
Make sure you remember to lock up properly tonight, Higgins.

CHAPTER 4

Tuesday 4th July, 1837
8:49 AM

The next morning, Julius headed off to walk the short distance to school. He stopped at the corner of Milk Street, poked his head out and looked up and down—no sign of Crimper McCready. He ran across the road and along the pavement until he came to the City of London School, where he mingled at the gate with the other pupils for camouflage.

Rounding the corner into the day yard, he breathed a sigh of relief. But in a moment a hand grabbed his collar and he was whisked off to the back of the toilet block. Fosdyke and Grimshaw slammed him against the wall while Crimper McCready took a drag from his cigar. All the other members of the secret smokers club stubbed out their butts and made hasty exits.

Oh, well, at least you'll get the beating over with nice and early, Higgins.

Crimper was the biggest boy in the school as well as the oldest. The City of London School educated the sons of the local shopkeepers and professionals up to the age of fifteen. The problem with McCready was that he had not managed to learn anything in all the time he had been there. His father, a well-to-do butcher, had insisted that the school keep his son until he was well enough acquainted with writing and arithmetic to take his place in the family business. But this had not yet occurred, so the school still accepted fees from Mr McCready and the pupils had to deal with random and unprovoked beatings from seventeen-year-old Crimper.

McCready screwed his currant-bun face into a sneer. ‘You're a toffy nosed, poncy little prat, 'iggins.'

McCready was exceptionally angry this morning. The run-in with Jack Springheel had shown him up in front of his minions, and a particularly brutal retribution was needed to put things right. Julius was thinking as fast as he could, but it was difficult with Fosdyke and Grimshaw blowing their bad breath in his face.

‘Yeah, 'e's a poncy nosed little prat,' said Grimshaw.

‘A poncy nosed,
toffy
little prat,' corrected Fosdyke, incorrectly.

‘You're gonna learn yourself a lesson, 'iggins,' said McCready through gritted teeth as he pulled a knife from inside his jacket.

‘I'm gonna cut your ears off.'

What?
Julius looked into McCready's black eyes. A wave of nausea spread through his body and his legs began to tremble.
If you vomit on his shoes he'll be even more annoyed with you, Higgins.

Jack Springheel was right when he said that all you have to do is to convince your adversary that you are mad, bad or stupid enough to carry out your threat. McCready was all three, and as for Fosdyke and Grimshaw, they had not had to think for themselves since McCready came into their lives and they were not going to start now. If Crimper McCready wanted to cut someone's ears off, they wouldn't argue. Julius wished he had stayed at Jack Springheel's lodgings and not come back to school at all.

The blood-encrusted blade was so close to Julius's face that he could almost taste the steel and dried blood, and he realised how much he had taken his ears for granted. There was a daydream he liked to indulge while in his more reflective moments—of surviving into adulthood, of marrying a quiet and pretty solicitor's daughter and having his own successful bookshop in a fashionable street. Perhaps a child or two to take on trips to Margate and Bath in the summer. For some reason—he could not put his finger on it at this very moment—Julius knew that if he did not have ears, none of these things would come to pass. If he did not have ears he would have to plot a different course through life, a course he did not wish to contemplate.

‘You're a stupid, fat, ignorant currant bun!' Julius blurted out before he could stop himself.
Oh, no! Shut your gob, Higgins.

‘What? What did you call me, 'iggins?' said Crimper, as he pulled the knife back over his shoulder and aimed it at Julius's eye.

‘You heard me, currant bun. You're a fat, stupid, brainless, useless…fat…,' shouted Julius at the top of his voice. Permanent disfigurement and now blindness or even death awaited him, but he was not going to accept it without a word or two of protest.

Crimper McCready locked his tiny black eyes onto Julius's. Nothing would stop him now.

Please God, let it be quick and painless.

While Julius braced himself for the first blow, salvation arrived in the form of old Whacker O'Brynn. The schoolmaster's cane sliced through the air with the familiar whistle that had been terrifying his unlucky pupils for the past sixty-five years.

Crimper was the first to scream out in pain as the cane came down across the backs of his legs. Amid a flurry of cane and shirt cuffs, Grimshaw fell to the ground, flailing his arms above his head to fend off the blows. Next, Fosdyke received a whack across the back of his hands. Whack, whack, whack, the blows fell on all the tender places. Whacker's face was bright—caning the boys always made him feel young and vital.

‘Young pups, take that, and that, and that,' he shouted in time with the licks of the cane, as he mar-shalled them towards the day yard.

Julius fell in behind, out of the range of the cane. When Whacker O'Brynn got going, every boy in the vicinity got a lick, the innocent as well as the guilty. Out into the day yard, the boys hopped and skipped, screeching and yelping.

‘Get you gone, young pups. Into yer classes with ya,' rasped Whacker.

Crimper and his cohorts ran for their classrooms, leaving Julius hiding on Whacker's blind side. But the old schoolmaster spotted him and lifted the cane. It sliced through the crisp morning air and cut into his backside.

‘What are ya doing, skulking there like a sewer rat? Tell me that, now, ya young pup. Into class with ya afore I skin ya alive.'

A minute later Julius was sitting at his desk with his face screwed up, waiting for the fire burning his backside to subside. All around him, boys threw balls of paper dipped in ink at one another and shouted at the tops of their voices, until the schoolmaster, Mr Crowley, marched in and lashed the blackboard with his cane.

‘Silence you curs,' he said, with a voice like a rusty hatchet. ‘Multiplication tables.'

Well, you survived the morning, but the afternoon is looking decidedly doubtful, Higgins.
The boys around him took their seats and groaned in misery.

By lunchtime Julius had formulated a plan for surviving into adulthood and for keeping his eyes and ears intact as well—he would throw in school for the time being and apprentice himself to Jack Springheel, Esquire.

As soon as the school bell sounded, he sprinted across the day yard, through the gate and made for home.

He burst into the bookshop and crashed through the customers until he reached the counter.

‘Julius Caesar? What in heaven's name are you doing home at this hour? You've been expelled. I knew it,' said Mr Higgins as he tried to serve two customers at once.

‘No, no. I've forgotten something,' said Julius, sneaking a sheet of his grandfather's personalised notepaper from the stack under the counter. ‘I'll explain it in a minute,' he continued, before disappearing into the back parlour.

At the writing desk, Julius laid out the sheet of paper.
Augustus Windermere Higgins, Book Seller, Ironmonger Lane,
it read in fine copperplate along the top. Julius dipped a pen in the ink bottle and, after a moment's thought, applied it to the page.

Dear Mr Coyle

It is with regret that I must inform you that my grandson, Julius Caesar Higgins, has been taken seriously ill. His physician recommends complete bed rest with no homework for one week at the very least. Please excuse Julius Caesar from lessons until Wednesday next.

Your Humble Servant

A. Higgins

Julius perused his handy work.
You could make a decent living as a forger if you put your mind to it, Higgins
, he thought, while blowing the ink dry. He folded the letter carefully and put it in the inside pocket of his jacket. Then he sprinted up the stairs and into his room. He threw a spare shirt, some underwear, socks, a comb and a book on fly-fishing he had not yet finished into a carpetbag. When he came down, his grandfather was in the back parlour tapping his spectacles on the palm of his hand.

‘What is all this, Julius Caesar? Running away to sea?' he said, nodding at the bag.

‘I forgot all about it, grandfather. I had to come home to pack. They're all getting ready to leave.'

‘Leave? Leave for where? What are you talking about?'

‘The history field trip to Hadrian's Wall.'

‘What? But that's in
Scotland
,' said Mr Higgins, as if that were objection enough.

‘I know, that's why we'll be gone for a week.'

‘A whole week? In
Caledonia
? Are you out of your senses?'

‘No, it's all been arranged. Don't you remember the note I gave you?'

‘No, I don't and I don't remember paying for it either. I'd have remembered that.'

‘There's no charge, it's been paid for by the Guild of Quality Butchers.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes, here, I'll show you the note. I have it upstairs somewhere,' said Julius, running back up the stairs. After rifling through his room for a minute he ran down again and thrust a sheet of paper into his grandfather's hand.

‘I'll see you in a week, then,' he said, grabbing the carpetbag and lunging for the door.

By the time he had made it through the throng of customers, his grandfather had read the note.

‘Hold up, Julius Caesar,' called out Mr Higgins from the shop doorway. Julius stopped wrestling with the carpetbag and turned back. ‘What?'

‘This note…it's about last year's Christmas pageant.'

‘Is it?' said Julius looking confused. ‘I must have given you the wrong one. There's no time now. I'll show it to you when I come back.'

‘Oh, you will, will you?'

‘Bye then,' said Julius as he scurried down the street.

‘Young Caesar.'

‘What?'