The Custodian of Marvels (27 page)

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.

“What’s the date?” I asked.

The urgency in my voice made the others stop in their tracks.

“What does it matter?” asked Lara.

“Just tell me!”

“It’s the tenth of October,” she said.

Understanding rushed in at me with such intensity that I felt dizzy. I held onto the roof beam to steady myself. “We can still do it!” I cried. “Don’t you see? It’s the end of summer. This morning the clocks went back. But only in the Kingdom. It’ll be tomorrow morning at four when they go back in the Republic. And everywhere else in the Gas-Lit Empire. That includes the International Patent Court!”

Fabulo’s eyes bulged. His mouth fell open. He was trying to speak, but could only blow air.

“I don’t understand,” said Yan.

“You could knock me down with a sparrow’s wing!” said Jeremiah. “The girl’s right!”

“I don’t understand either,” said Ellie.

“It means,” I said, “that the guards aren’t going to be held back from the door of the Patent Court for just nine minutes and twenty one seconds. Tonight they’re going to be standing around outside for that and a whole extra hour.”

“So… we can…” Now it was Yan’s turn to lose the power of speech.

“We can do it!” said Jeremiah.

“So the old plan’s going to work?” asked Ellie.

“Yes,” I said. “And no. We were going to do it in three days’ time. But there’s only one night in the year when the clocks have gone back here and the Patent Court’s not yet followed. That’s tonight. We have to do it now.”

They celebrated then, with hugs and handshakes and back slapping and beaming smiles. Everyone except Ellie. It was her voice that broke the spell.

“We can’t do it tonight,” she said. “We haven’t got the carriage yet. If we don’t have a carriage to block the light, you’re going to be seen opening the gate. There’s no other way.”

Fabulo’s face had charted such a journey of emotions in the last hour that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d suffered an apoplectic fit. A groan escaped from somewhere deep in his chest. We all turned to look at him.

“Three hours!” he cried. “We have but three hours! And every jot must be prepared! Get to it!”

“But the carriage?” said Ellie. “We’ve no money to buy one!”

“We don’t need money,” he shouted. “Nor horses. Just get me a brush and a tin of black paint. Do it now. And run!”

CHAPTER 24

October 10th

They will beg to be told the secrets of your illusion. But you must know them better than they know themselves. The truth will disappoint.

The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook

Paint is everywhere in a city – on every door and window frame, on walls and coaches. You’d think it would be easy to find a can of the stuff. But nothing is easy when you have no time.

I ran from the rookery and started out along Commercial Road East. A night market was setting up further along the street and many of the settled traders had stayed open to take advantage of the crowds. I looked in through shop windows, searching for any that might sell decorating supplies.

Bumping shoulders in the crowd, I drew shouts of annoyance. So much attention is a dangerous thing. Any one of the people staring at me might have seen a fugitive poster with my description. But there are times to spend such luck as is one’s portion.

There were pubs, butcher’s, cobblers and druggists. There were lamp sellers and glove makers. Then I was into the street market itself, with fruit and vegetables laid out on tarpaulin sheets on the road, all lit by oil lamps laid here and there.

I almost missed the ironmongery shop, since it was half hidden behind a canopy that one of the street traders was setting up.

“Paint? Do you sell paint?”

At first, I thought the ironmonger’s assistant was confused by my question, but his expression was one of concern.

“Are you well, miss?”

“Well?”

“You’re… perspiring.”

There was a display of mirrors on the wall next to the counter. I glanced at my reflection and understood his reaction. My lip was still swollen. Strands of dark hair had escaped from under my hat and were stuck to my skin by a slick of sweat. My cheeks were blotched red.

I took a breath and let it out as slowly as I could manage, then started again. “I’m quite well, thank you. I need black paint. Please.”

He nodded, then fetched a set of wooden steps from the back of the shop, which he climbed to reach a paint tin on the topmost shelf. His progress was unbearably slow. “We’ve Benson’s in stock, but I could order some of Cartwright’s Gloss if you prefer it?”

I grabbed a paint brush from a rack display and the tin from his hand.

“I’ll get your change,” he said, when I threw the money on the counter.

But I was already on my way to the door.

More market stalls were setting up when I emerged back onto Commercial Road. Pedestrians who might have walked on the roadway were now being squeezed in along a narrow path next to the shops. I tried to push ahead, but tempers were rising in the crush. I’d got past an overlarge woman, trailing children and a wheeled shopping basket, and was shouldering through a knot of workmen when a hand grabbed my arm. I pulled free and was stepping away, but a voice I knew called out from behind me.

“Stand where you are!”

It was John Farthing again.

There was no room to run forwards along the pavement, so I lurched towards the roadway, jumping a tarpaulin piled with fruit. I must have caught him unprepared because I’d already set off at a run before I heard him crashing through the fruit stall in pursuit. There were shouts of outrage and the sounds of a scuffle. I glanced back and saw apples scattered over the road and the stallholder grappling with Farthing, trying to haul him back.