A Clockwork Heart (15 page)

The driver took the coins and pocketed them. “That's a start, but I think that pocket watch would just about even things out. I am taking my life into my hands here.” He pointed at Marsh's waistcoat. Amazingly, his pocket watch was still pinned to the buttonhole of his waistcoat.

Elle felt her temper flare. If there was one thing she detested, it was when someone took advantage of those more vulnerable than them.

Before the cabdriver could say anything, she opened the cab door and shoved Marsh inside. He grunted and rolled over in the seat. “Stay,” she told him firmly before slamming the door and locking it.

“Oi, what do you think you're doing?” the cabdriver said.

Elle pulled out her revolver and pointed it at the cabdriver. The man's eyes widened as he took in the sight of the barrel of the gun. “Now look here—” he started to say.

“No, you look here, sir,” Elle interrupted. “This has not exactly been the best of nights. I am cold, I am tired and my husband needs help. I have paid you more than the required fare. So now either you are going to drive us home or I am going to shoot you where you sit and take your cab. There are plenty more undead ticking things lurking about in these parts. And if they smell blood, they will rip your body apart so comprehensively that not even your own mother would recognize you,” she said in a low voice. “Do I make myself clear?” She had made up the bit about the limb-tearing for effect, and it seemed to work.

“All right madam. Please, let's go,” the driver said as he fired up the spark reactor. “No use in hanging about then,” he muttered faintly.

Mercifully, the boiler was already hot and the cab started moving. Elle jumped up onto the seat next to the driver and pushed the gun into his ribs. “Grosvenor Square. And with a dash of speed.” She said between clenched teeth.

The cab driver did not wait to be asked twice. He set off into the snow-slick streets at a speed that was not entirely safe for the prevailing conditions, but Elle did not complain. At least they were going home.

Their journey passed in a daze. Elle felt her knuckles grow cold and stiff as she kept the revolver pointed at the driver. Icy blobs of snow splattered into her face and hair. And as she sat, she did her best not to let her teeth chatter. Fortunately, the old cab was rattling so much, she didn't think the driver would notice.

Elle had never been so relieved as she was the moment they pulled up outside Greychester House.

She jumped onto the ground and unlocked the cab door. Marsh was still lying on his side in more or less the same position he had been in when she shoved him in there, and somehow, she managed to drag him up and bundle him out the cab without too much difficulty.

Marsh's legs buckled under him as they reached the ground but Elle dragged him up onto the first step when the front door opened.

The cabdriver did not hang about to see what might happen next and roared off into the night.

“Caruthers, please help me. Anyone, Help!” Elle called out. She was close to the end of her strength.

“Already here, my lady. We've been waiting for you,” Neville said. She noticed he was holding a cricket bat. “The baroness arrived about three-quarters of an hour ago. Mrs. Hinges is tending to her and the professor is waiting in the drawing room.”

“Thank goodness for that. Would you mind giving me a hand? He is ever so heavy,” she said. Elle gasped as her knees buckled when she stood.

“Good heavens,” Neville paled when he set eyes on Marsh. “Caruthers! You have better come out and lend us a hand!” he said.

“See if someone can set the fire for us. Grab his other side,” Elle mumbled. Her lips were so cold that they did not seem to work that well anymore.

Together, the three of them maneuvered Marsh into the house and onto one of the wingback chairs next to the fire in the main drawing room.

Marsh sank into the chair with the groan of a man who had been standing for a very long time.

Elle stood shivering and wet in the middle of the drawing room as the household stepped into action. The fire was stoked, tea was made and someone rushed off to fetch the doctor. Someone wrapped a warmed dry blanket around her and handed her a hot drink that was both tart and bitter on her tongue.

Another pair of hands led her to a seat. After that, she must have dozed off, because all she could remember of that night were snippets of conversation that drifted past her.

“ … how extraordinary. He's completely immobilized … I wonder what makes that thing in his chest tick,” she heard her father say.

“ … find some dry clothes for her ladyship, before she catches her death,” the comforting voice of Mrs. Hinges drifted into focus.

Elle came back into awareness when Marsh groaned and tried to rise from the chair. Neville fetched a pair of leather straps to tie him down. Even immobilized, Marsh craned his neck as if he were trying to sense where she was. His face turned from side to side while his milky eyes remained completely blank.

Loisa appeared in her line of vision. “Eleanor!” She patted Elle's cheeks.

“Loisa, thank goodness you are all right. What happened to Jasper?” she slurred.

“He's safe and at home. So am I. But I think we need to get you warmed up and dried off before you contract pneumonia,” Loisa said and she nudged her toward where Mrs. Hinges was waiting for her.

“No, I must hear what the doctor says. We have to fix him before it's too late,” she mumbled.

“The doctor will speak to us tomorrow. There is nothing that can be done this evening. But you, on the other hand, need to look after yourself. I don't think I could manage both of you at death's door at the same time.” Mrs. Hinges chatted to her all the way to her room and helped her undress as her fingers were so numb that she could not undo her own buttons.

The last thing Elle remembered before she closed her eyes was the warmth of her comforter that enveloped her as Mrs. Hinges tucked it around her.

CHAPTER 19

Elle sat up in bed with a start and looked over at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was half past ten in the morning. Mrs. Hinges must have put something in her tea last night, because she felt puffy-faced despite the fact that she had been asleep for hours. She groaned and struggled out of bed. Every muscle in her body ached and she was so stiff she could hardly move, but she managed to dress nonetheless.

Loisa was in the entrance hall, ostensibly examining one of the potted plants when Elle came downstairs. Her beautiful porcelain doll face was hollow-eyed and gray in the half-light of the hallway.

“Loisa, have you rested?” Elle said with concern.

Her friend shook her head with a nonchalance that belied her fatigue. “I was just on my way up.”

“What happened last night? It's all such a blur.”

Loisa looked grave. “I tried to kill the guards but they were wearing charms or amulets, which sapped my strength, so they fought me off. So when the undead and the guards set off after you all we could do was follow behind. But there were too many of them for me and Jasper to take on alone, so we circumvented them and went to the rendezvous as agreed. We waited and waited, but you did not appear. We feared the worst when a few stray undead started appearing and in the end we had to run or face being captured. We told the cabdriver to wait for you. We caught another cab near Liverpool Street that took us to Jasper's home and then came here. It was quite an adventure.”

A series of grunts and cries, followed by the frantic whining of a gramophone record player wound too fast, came from the drawing room.

Loisa put a hand on her arm. “Prepare yourself. Seeing him in the light is not going to be easy.”

Elle closed her eyes as the harsh realities of last night came flooding back. Her eyes felt swollen and gritty and she had to blink a few times to get rid of the sudden surge of wetness that blurred her vision.

Neville and Caruthers had maneuvered her husband into a wicker bath chair and they were both on their knees on the carpet securing the wheels. Marsh was grunting and straining against the canvas sleeves of the straitjacket that bound his arms. Slivers of drool were escaping from the brass muzzle that covered his jaw. Mrs. Hinges stood beside the professor who was in one of the wingback chairs and together they seemed to be directing operations.

Elle let out a small sob that had formed unnoticed in her chest. “Is that really necessary?” she said over the noise of the gramophone. She walked over to the machine and lifted the needle off the record. The room stilled, save for the grunts and groans.

“The music seems to calm him, my lady,” Caruthers said.

She walked over to the chair and put her hands on her husband's knees. “Shh. There you go. It”'s all right, be still now,” she murmured. She felt the thin filament between them draw tight and Marsh stilled. He turned his grayed-out eyes to her, as if he could see her somehow.

She rubbed his knee. “There now. See, that's better,” she said. Marsh grunted and closed his eyes.

Elle pulled her handkerchief from her pocket and carefully started wiping the drool from his muzzle. As she worked, Marsh suddenly turned his head and tried to snap at her hand. The sound of tooth upon tooth was horrible and the bath chair wobbled under his weight.

Elle recoiled in horror.

“I bet you he's just hungry.” Loisa said. She had come into the drawing room and was standing quietly behind Elle.

“Have you tried to feed him?” Elle said.

“Well, I wouldn't even begin to know what he eats now,” Mrs. Hinges said.

Despite the utter horror of the situation, Elle could not help but smile. For once in her life, Mrs. Hinges was completely at a loss when it came to catering. Elle did not think she had ever encountered someone Mrs. Hinges could not feed.

“Perhaps we should experiment, said the professor. “I'm sure we can undo that horrible muzzle once he's properly secured in the chair. Let me just go and fetch my tools.”

“How about some porridge to start or some meat broth? See what stays down,” Mrs. Hinges suggested.

“No porridge,” Loisa said. “This is necromancy. The undead usually crave living flesh. He needs meat. Raw and as fresh as possible.”

“I'll see what I can do.” Mrs. Hinges did her best not to shudder.

“Neville, what about those cast-iron statues of the lions at the bottom of the stairs? I'm always stubbing my elbows on them and they weigh a ton. See if some of the lads downstairs can give you a hand to get them in here,” Elle said.

The professor smiled. “An excellent idea, my dear. Iron should modulate the thaumaturgic energy fields and, if my theory is correct, it should dampen his strength a little.”

“I will get right on it, my lady,” Neville said.

“Caruthers, I am placing you in charge of the gramophone. Only soft gentle music to calm him,” Elle said.

“Right away, my lady.”

Loisa was leaning against the mantelpiece, pale and fragile in the light of the fire. Elle turned to her. “Loisa, we have much to discuss, but first you must rest. We can't have you turning to dust here on the rug either, hmm?” Elle said.

Loisa smiled at her affectionately. “I think I might have a short nap,” she said.

“Dinner is at seven. We will see you then.”

The baroness looked decidedly grateful as she swept from the room.

Elle heard the sound of Marsh's teeth clicking together near her hand again. While she had been speaking to Loisa, he had leaned toward her, his teeth working furiously as if he was trying to chew through the muzzle to get to her hand.

Slivers of drool were swinging from side to side as his head moved. The sight of him filled Elle with such anguish that she had to look away.

“Perhaps we might find a way to put the muzzle back once we've fed him. We don't want him injuring some unsuspecting passerby,” Elle said softly.

Just then, the deep gong of the doorbell reverberated through the house.

“The doctor is here,” Caruthers announced.

Elle turned to the drawing-room door. “Well, let's see what he has to say.”

Dr. Miller was a skinny man with a rather large, beak-like nose that, along with his propensity to stoop, made him look very much like a carrion bird. This was rather unfortunate, given the fact that he was a physician and a good one at that.

“Most extraordinary,” said Dr. Miller as he leaned forward to examine Marsh. “I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it.”

“We think we can remove the muzzle, but I'm not so sure about that thing in his chest,” the professor said in an attempt to be helpful.

“Hmm. I wonder. Are those brass screws holding the muzzle in place?”

“I think I have a screwdriver that would work very well for that,” the professor said as he started rummaging through his toolbox.

“I will of course need to bring him to the hospital so we can examine the device further,” Dr. Miller said as he examined the source of the ticking with his stethoscope. “And if I might say so, I do believe that he would make an extraordinary subject for a medical paper. This type of science is far more advanced than anything we have seen. The person who invented this is a genius. There could be real benefit for medical research.”

Elle stood very still, biting the insides of her cheeks as she did her best to control the emotions that were storming through her. “No. I am not going to allow that. Lord Greychester is still a person, regardless of what you might think. And he is still my husband. He is not to leave this house so he can be poked and prodded by strangers.” Everyone seemed to be regarding her husband as if he were some oddity that needed to be gawped at like an animal in a zoo or a circus performer.

She looked down at her hands. Her left ring finger felt numb and had turned a deathly white color, just above the metal band. When she moved her fingers her hand ached with a strange dullness.

“My lady, there simply is no other way to establish whether we can remove the device. We have no option but to do more invasive investigations and those simply cannot be done except within the controlled environment of a hospital. He will be perfectly safe, I'm sure,” the doctor said

“I said no!” Elle's tone was a bit too loud and the doctor's eyes widened in surprise.

“I say,” he muttered “I am only trying to help, you know.”

Elle took a deep breath. “Dr. Miller, I'm very sorry but it has been a most unhappy event. Whatever happened to my husband, it was metaphysical. There are strange forces at work here that have nothing to do with modern medicine. And I will not let Lord Greychester out of this house until I have more answers.”

“Perhaps we might continue this discussion when you have rested a little,” the doctor said kindly. “Would you like me to give you a sedative?”

“No thank you. My mind is quite firmly made up. I will not have you and your colleagues poking and prodding my husband like he is some freakish medical phenomenon. I will not.”

“Of course, my lady. I meant no offense,” the doctor said.

“Now, tell me about that mechanism in his chest.” Elle pointed at the opening in Marsh's shirt that the doctor had been examining. It looked like someone had taken a large apple corer to the center of Marsh's chest. And there, slightly to the left, exactly where his heart should be, an oblong brass mechanism had been inserted. It had a small glass dome and inside, Elle could see what looked like a mechanical heart. The cogs and gears of the device whirred and moved in simulation of a human heartbeat.

The doctor rubbed his chin. “Well, yes. It is quite something, isn't it? As far as I can tell, it looks as if his heart has been removed and replaced by this clockwork device. And without it, or his heart, in place there is no demonstrable way to keep him alive.”

“And taking the machine out and putting his heart back? Is that possible?”

Dr. Miller shook his head. “I honestly don't know. See how the skin around the device has been cauterized.” He pointed at the puckered, graying skin adjacent to the device. “In my considered opinion, unless the heart has somehow been preserved, there would have been a definite deterioration of the heart tissue, making it impossible to be restored. I mean, we don't even know where the heart is.”

“But if they did preserve it, do you think you could put it back?” Elle said.

“That sort of surgery is beyond my expertise. I could ask my colleagues who specialize in surgical procedures, but I suspect it's most unlikely.”

“And the undead-like state? Is that linked to the device?”

“I would have thought so. But how much of the actual person remains is very hard to say. From the looks of things, not much.”

“But he will remain alive as long as the device keeps ticking?”

The doctor looked at Elle seriously. “In a manner of speaking. If you define his current state as not dead, then I suppose you could call whatever he is alive.”

“He is alive in there, I can feel it,” Elle said, undeterred by the doctor's pessimism.

The doctor took her hand. “My lady, I'm afraid that your husband's very survival depends on the faultless operation of that device. And I am very concerned about the fact that there is a keyhole in the center of it.”

“Yes, I noticed that too,” the professor said, looking up from his toolbox. “If that heart works like any other clockwork device I know, then he will need winding. And that can only be done by whoever currently has the key.”

Elle chewed her lip, which felt flaky and dry under her tongue. “How long do you think he has before time runs out?” she asked.

The doctor sighed. “There is simply no way of knowing. What do you think, professor?”

The professor scratched his head. “Judging by the size and dimensions of the heart, measured against standard clocks with winding mechanisms of that size, I would say about a week.”

“So we have about a week to find the solution,” Elle said.

“In theory, yes,” the doctor said. “But I am completely stumped. This type of medical procedure is beyond anything I have ever encountered and I honestly cannot guarantee that we will be able to put things to rights.”

“Well then, gentlemen, it seems that I have one week to find the key to my husband's heart,” Elle said. She folded her arms with grim determination. “We had best get on with it then.”