The Cogspeare Conspiracy (The Cogspeare Chronicles Book 1) (22 page)

Edwina snuggled closer to Cornelius.

“I do believe our eldest son is in love,” she murmured.

“I know that, dear, I do have eyes. But I just hope that it doesn’t drive him to ruin his life.”

“On the contrary, dear,” she replied, stroking his hair, “I firmly believe that it will help him rebuild his life into something truly worthwhile.”

Chapter 47:

Edwina was right about one thing: Twym Glyndwr had left them so as to get to his editor. While the man had been quite shocked at the head researcher arriving in his office, brandishing an article and demanding it be published, by the time he had read it halfway through he had already begun to stop the presses and to replace the front page with this vital update.

              The next morning, London was in for a shock. 

Chapter 48:

Sometime in the uncertain hours between Friday and Saturday, five stories below Clinton’s plush offices, James, Clinton’s associate, was waiting for his enforcers to arrive in the basement of the SWSMC headquarters.

              Clinton was displeased and had ordered him to intensify the surveillance on Magnus Cogspeare. Just as he turned for the next in his carefully measured series of steps, he felt something, merely a breath, on the nape of his neck. He swung around.

              “Jesus!” he screamed, and the massive block of a man in front of him chuckled.

              “Weren’t the first time oi hear that, mate,” the block chuckled, showing a stunning lack of teeth. But what he lacked in dentistry he more than made up for with his unusual skill set.

              “Shut up!” he tried to get his vocal chords under control. “I don’t pay you to scare me- you’re supposed to do that to everyone else!”

              “
You
don’t pay me, mate,” a finger as big as a Cumberland sausage stabbed his chest, “Mr. Clinton is wot does. Now, wot needs doin’, ‘cus I ‘ave a lady friend what don’t like to wait.”

              “What happened to the man you were following?”

              “Well, like I said, he went down to the sea-side and came back.”

              “And you saw everyone he spoke to?” The man gave his best impression of a craggy mountainside being abashed.

              “Not exactly. Y’see, my tum feels right queasy on them fast blighters, so I’s sent down one o’me men, and then they’s reported back to me, like.”

              “What the hell do you think you’re paid for? Look, just make sure the barrister doesn’t speak to anyone out of the ordinary.”

              “How’s I’m to know which ones is ordinary?”

              “Damn it, man, he doesn’t have any friends, and after the escapade in Cornwall I think he’ll stay close to home. Just keep your men with you in case they recognize someone who shouldn’t be around.”

              “And if they do?”

              “Do what we hired you to do.”

Chapter 49

The next day, after he had dismissed Addison for the morning, Magnus dragged his tired, rumpled self home for a quick meal and a change of clothes. Or at least, it was supposed to be a quick stop. He really should have known better.

              As he walked up the front stairs, suppressing a yawn, something odd struck him; Steamins didn’t open the front door. He waited for another beat or two, and then tried the door handle. It gave and the door opened smoothly. He stepped inside, and he was almost impaled.

              “Bloody brass coils!” he shouted, diving out of the way. “What the hell is going on?” He turned to look behind him, and saw a mass of quivering darts imbedded in the fine wood lining of the door.

              But like almost everything in the Cogspeare household, these darts were slightly different than the average pub projectile. They were shot from a miniature crossbow and their propulsion was enhanced with spesium-infused steam.

              “I tried to stop them, sir,” Steamins let loose a long-suffering sigh as he helped Magnus up and took his outerwear.

              “Be glad young Seb here has such bad aim, Magnus,” said a grinning Quintus, smoking superciliously near the staircase. “I’ve been trying to rectify that for the last hour, but he seems to be a lost cause.”

              “You’re insane! It’s the only possible explanation.”

              “Very probably, brother mine. But then again, is a sane person in a house of crackpots truly sane?” Magnus rolled his eyes.

              “Magnus!” called Sebastian, divesting himself of the protective eye- and arm-gear and quickly rushing to his brother. “Mother’s making me go to the opera tonight!” he wailed.

              This was the latest of Edwina Cogspeare’s endeavours to properly finish and socially-integrate her youngest son. He was interested in all things biological and animal, to the exclusion of all else, and she was truly worried that he was going the way of a socially-inept introvert, much like his eldest brother.

              “Three months ago it was a concert, then after that an art exhibit, then last month it was the ballet, and now this. It’s ridiculous! I’m perfectly cultured as it is!”

              “I think the ballet was Father’s idea,” added Quintus, “probably thought you might enjoy looking at those lithe young women in tight stockings. And since that didn’t do it, he probably thinks that your tastes might run towards the bigger-bosomed ladies,” Quintus grinned mischievously, and Sebastian blushed as deeply as a cardinal’s breast.

              “I’m sorry, Seb, but we all have our crosses to bear for the family. Be glad yours is merely opera. Who else is going?” The slightly crestfallen Sebastian replied,

              “Just Declan. Amadeus is out looking for Erasmus. He thinks that by now he must have alcohol poisoning and wants to watch what happens. Father promised he would come, but that’s assuming Mother and Steamins can pry him away from his tinkering and get him into evening kit.”

              “I shall try and rise to the occasion,” added Steamins as he proffered Sebastian another set of darts, these tipped with a stronger and lighter alloy Cornelius was currently perfecting upstairs. “Mrs. Cogspeare and Miss McFlynt are still at breakfast, sir. Will you be joining them?”

              Magnus was sorely tempted just to go upstairs and change, and hopefully not be enticed by the crisp, cool sheets stretched over his soft bed. His stomach gave a tremendous growl, and he gave in to it.

              “Yes, I’ll go in,” he said, sighing as he went.

              “Don’t forget to read the morning rags!” Quintus called out as Sebastian fired off another ill-aimed dart. He took the crossbow from him, re-loaded, and gave him some more pointers, aiming himself and firing. The dart whizzed through the air with a tail of red-steam, and struck the door with enough force to crack one of the steel bolts.

              “Bull’s eye” Quintus grinned, blowing on the smoking crossbow.

              Trying not to wince at the sound, Magnus made his way into the dining room, where Declan was on his second breakfast and Edwina and Minerva were huddled over a newspaper spread. They both looked up at his arrival, and Edwina quickly rose, squealing,

              “Oh, my dear, I’m so glad you’re home. Look!” she held out the paper, shaking it, “you’re in the papers! It’s all about the case.”

             
Obviously it is, Mother,
he wanted to say.
Unlike the rest of this family, it’s the only reason why I would be in the papers.

              “I’ve already had Steamins go out and get a dozen more copies,” she added proudly, “so that everyone can have a copy. And don’t you think Mr. Gears did a lovely job? His family must be very proud.”

              Magnus absently took the paper, adding, “Mr. Glyndwr doesn’t have a family that I know of, Mother, just a fiancée.”

              “Oh, well, that’s nice I’m sure,” she said sweetly, sitting back down and taking a sip of tea.

              To stave off further conversation, Magnus picked up the paper and began munching on a crumpet. He suddenly spit it out.

              “Yuck!” he gagged on the offending bread. “What is wrong with this?”

              No one would have ever been gauche enough to mention it, but Monsieur Bongout was feeling a tad delicate that morning, courtesy of a birthday party for the chef next door. And his cooking always reflected the state of his mind.

              “Bongout must have one hell of a hangover!” exclaimed Declan around a mouthful of watery scrambled eggs.

Well, no one
below
stairs would have been gauche enough to mention it, anyway. 

              Magnus sighed and rose. “I’m going upstairs to change, then I’m off again to the office. ‘Bye, Mother,” he went and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, nodding to Minerva as he left the room. Edwina was almost too shocked to speak, but she managed to get out,

              “Magnus, dear, your father wants to see you before you go. He’s up in the laboratory.”

              Magnus sighed again, feeling exhausted to the bone and trudged out, too tired to resist. And that was just how his father wanted him for this particular chat.

Chapter 50:

There came a faint knock at John Cragg’s weather-worn door. Soon the knocking became incessant. And finally, it stopped.

              It stopped because the door handle slowly turned and the door opened, letting the late-morning daylight come as far into the putrid gloom of the cottage as it dared.

              “John?” called out a gruff voice. “John!” Pat Smythe, a fellow miner, didn’t have far to take his body, bent from years of working in the mines, until he found John in the parlour.

              “I heard he…passed on,” Pat said quietly. John made no movement, and for a moment, Pat actually thought he might have to pry away the man from his son’s corpse. But finally John raised his head and Pat came face to face with despair.

              “You’re in mourning, John, I can see that. But, well, it isn’t right to be here with…” he motioned to John Jr.

              “With my son?” John Sr. exclaimed hoarsely. “Who else is there to be with him? His mother is gone, and all his mates are too. I’m the only one left.” He began to weep. Pat made to go over, but was checked by the oddly coloured dried blood that covered John and the corpse.

              “John, let Annie,” he named his wife, “and some of the other women clean him up, make him ready to bury.”  Annie had volunteered their services to help John with burying his son, but Pat was having second, third, and even fourth thoughts about letting his wife over the threshold, let alone allowing her to touch the corpse. Though she and the others had done it many times before, what had once been the earthly vestment of John Jr. had become a bloated, blood-encrusted corpse. The fast decomposition wasn’t the only thing odd; all the blood that had run out of John Jr.’s body was still glistening and bright red, and smelled tangy. 

John just shook his head, over and over.

              “He’ll never be right to bury in the family plot, Pat, just look at him! He were the only one that came up outta that mine, and look at what he’s become. I can’t even have a proper burial- it’s like the plague- he’ll have to be burned!” he wailed.

              It was Annie who had put Pat up to this, and he really wasn’t a man equipped to deal with anything more serious than a broken mine support, or in a pinch, a broken beer cask. He reached for his last resort.

              “But see here, John, they are doin’ somethin’ for him, and for all of ‘em. See?” He reached over and tapped John’s shoulder with the latest edition of the town’s one copy of the
Daily Pulse
, opened to Twym Glyndwr’s article.

              John took the paper, wiping his eyes with filthy hands, and began to slowly, laboriously, read.

Chapter 51:

Ever since Magnus had almost been killed, his father’s laboratory wasn’t his favourite place in the house. In fact, it would be fair to say that he avoided it like a brass coil avoids a straight ruler. But today he was far too tired and preoccupied to protest.