Dead Men's Tales (Tales of the Brass Griffin Book 5) (4 page)

“Arcady,” Krumer said flatly in greeting.

Captain Hunter ignored Krumer’s mildly irritated tone, and smiled at the Clockwork warmly. “Thank you, Arcady, I’m … repairing … quite well.” The captain glanced at the nightmarish mash of parts that had once been a feather-covered clockwork owl not long ago.

“I was told there was some progress with the servitor,” Hunter said hesitantly, “does it … work?”

“Oh, sure Cap’n,” Moira said, propping her goggles atop her head, “just let me wind ‘im up.”

Producing a small brass key from her brown vest pocket, she inserted it in a slot near the base of the neck beneath some of the few remaining feathers. Several turns later, with a nerve rattling grind, the small gears took hold, turning in the machine’s chest.

“I tried to get it all the way workin’ but the personality cylinder’s been shot up pretty bad,” Moira explained. “So I took that out and just hooked it right up to the memory cylinder.”

“Turning it into a nightmarish phonograph?” Krumer quipped.

“Exactly,” Moira replied with another grin, oblivious to the teasing from the first mate.

While the gears rattled up to speed, the glass eyes of the mechanical beast glowed a dusky orange. The brass metal beak opened, but instead of a flat, mechanical voice asking for instructions, or even to acknowledge whom it was to speak to, a wash of static-rich noise rolled out.

The captain and Krumer exchanged a dubious look. Moira gestured to the half-rebuilt servitor at their reaction. “Now just wait,” she prompted. “Give it a moment. I wouldn’t have told ya I had somethin’ if I didn’t.”

As if on cue, the unmistakable sound of an explosion echoed through the room. The first mate and the captain sprang instantly back, looking around at the steam pipes and main boiler as if something had burst. Realizing it was only a recording, they exchanged a look, then stepped back over to the workbench. The moment they returned, the sounds of explosions were replaced with several voices raised in anger, pain and surprise.

Hunter lifted his eyebrows in astonishment, then cleared his throat. “Interesting, does it get any clearer?”

“Just wait,” Moira said eagerly.

“Yes, be patient, Captain,” Arcady echoed.

Krumer chuckled, which earned him a sour glance from Captain Hunter. Beside the four shipmates, the gears rattled again, and the servitor shuddered.

“Send the general distress!” A strong clear voice erupted out
of the general static and noise.

“Aye, Cap’n!” came the reply.

The recording continued, “if we’re fortunate, someone will hear us. Providence knows we need it.”

“Damn it man, who’s attacking you?” Hunter growled, leaning forward on the table in anticipation.

“Cap’n,” Moira started to reply, but Anthony waved a hand to forestall any comment.

“I know, its only a recording,” Hunter said. “Just caught in the moment.”

Suddenly, another explosion punctuated the flow of orders from the captain of the
Fair Winds
. As the noise settled, a new voice broke in.

“Ah, so here’s where you’re hiding, Captain!” said the new voice in a clear, British tone. “Stand down, and I’ll spare enough to load my ship.”

Krumer shot a surprised look at Anthony, “Spirits above. Captain, I thought he was serving a prison sentence in Bermuda?” 

Moira and Arcady exchanged a confused look. “Who?” Moira asked.

“John Charles Clark,” Hunter explained, looking just as astonished as the first mate. “We called him ‘Black Jack’ Clark when we all served together. He was caught stealing the payroll to bankroll an opium smuggling venture. Nothing that would earn him a hangman’s noose, but enough to have him soundly discharged and shipped to the prisons on Bermuda. I remember his sentencing ten years ago, he should still be on Bermuda with the chain gangs, working the shipyards.”

“He had to have escaped,” Krumer said, both impressed and astonished, “but coming back here? Surely he knows he’ll be caught again.”

The captain shook his head. “Oh, I’m certain it’s crossed his mind once or twice, not that he’d give the thought any credit. If Black Jack took this ship, then he’s after something specific. Otherwise we’d have found the bodies of the passengers to go along with bodies of all the crew. He’s a base thief, and not above killing or kidnapping to get what he wants.”

“But why here?” Moira asked curiously.

“Perhaps evading the authorities in Bermuda?” Arcady offered.

“It would make sense,” the first mate agreed. “What do you think, Captain? You knew him best.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but perhaps,” the captain agreed. “If we’re lucky.”

“Why would luck be considered?” Arcady asked in his tin-sounding voice.

“Because on one hand, he’s here for something valuable, like the Von Patterson artifacts mentioned in the
Fair Winds
manifest,” Hunter explained darkly, “on the other, he might actually be here to murder Thorias and myself. Specifically, Thorias.”

“Doc?” Moira asked, eyes wide in alarm, “why? Doc doesn’t hurt anybody, less you’re gettin’ patched up, then he really don’t mean it.”

“It was Thorias who witnessed Black Jack stealing the
Intrepid’s
payroll. I was the one who caught the scoundrel before he could kill Thorias and make his escape. We made an account of it at his hearing,” Hunter said firmly. “Last thing he said was, he would kill us both, and he didn’t care how many others he had to kill to do it.”

A
n uncomfortable silence settled around the room, broken only by the steady, dull clank of the ship’s pistons and the regular hiss of steam from pressure valves. A cloud of mist drifted across, dissipating before it reached the other side.

On the workbench, the orange glow in the clockwork owl’s eyes dimmed, and the sound of explosions, gunfire, and crashes of steel came slowly to an inevitable stop. The glow dimmed further as the beak closed, and finally the head tilted to one side
as a spring in the motor gave a sickening pop.

“Well,” Moira sighed, “I got it to work for a little while.” She frowned at the silent menagerie of brass clockwork parts. Reaching out, she tilted the owl’s head back into an upright position, looking into its dim mechanical eyes. “Maybe I can repair it again … just need to be makin’ a few alterations here and there,” she said thoughtfully, pulling the damaged mainspring from the device.

“What shall we do?” Arcady asked, his mechanical-clipped voice breaking the heavy mood. “Concerning this ‘Black Jack’ individual?”

Moira shrugged, “we go get ‘im before he hurts anybody else.” She looked at the captain and the first mate, “right?”

Captain Hunter nodded. “Indeed, if we can determine what hole he’s crawled into. The North Sea is not a small place, it’s quite wide enough to hide him for awhile.” Hunter thought for a moment, “I’ve one or two friends left in the Navy who still speak to me, I’ll send an inquiry – discreetly – about Black Jack. If he has gotten loose, the Navy might not yet be aware he’s in the North Sea.”

Krumer folded his arms over his chest, stretching his blue cotton shirt, “What about the cylinders from the
Fair Winds’
opti-telegraphic? Could you play them on,” the orc waved a hand at the loose assortment of connected parts that comprised the clockwork owl, “your phonograph of the damned?”

The blacksmith set down the broken mainspring, wiped her hands on the brown leather vest she wore, then turned to grab a pair of black, wax-coated cylinders from behind her on a shelf. “Them cylinders from the
Fair Winds
won’t fit the owl. They’re just a few inches too big. I tried pullin’ some of the owl’s frame out of the way, but that didn’t help.”

To prove her point, she set the cylinders down
next to the owl. Deftly, she flipped a latch a the base of the owl’s neck, just hidden by the last remaining feathers. A metal catch popped free, and the head swiveled open revealing a round, drum-like chamber designed to hold four cylindrical tubes. Each narrow chamber in the drum had a set of thin flexible needles, resembling brush-like teeth.

Moira picked up one of the two opti-telegraphic cylinders, and placed it against the opening in the owl. “See, cylinders in a servitor aren’t that wide, just narrow. An opti-telegraphic’s cylinders are a good inch longer and two inches wider.”

Krumer scowled at the two cylinders a moment, as if noticing something. “Moira, may I?” He asked, gesturing to the one the blacksmith held.

“A’course,” Moira replied, holding out the black, wax-coated tube.

The first mate turned the cylinder over in his hands, examining it closely. Moira pointed at the one Krumer held, “So, I borrowed the Griffin’s opti for a few spins. That one plays just fine. The first is just too scratched up to make any sense out of it.”

The first mate nodded sagely, putting the undamaged cylinder next to the owl, then picked up the scratched mate. “What was on it?”

“A few messages towards Edinburgh, and their distress call, a’ course,” Moira replied. “Oh! One kinda interesting one, too. Mrs. Von Patterson sent word she was bringing somethin’ back for the Royal Museum. Somethin’ they’d dug up near Normandy.”

“Normandy?” Hunter echoed. “Anything more specific than that?”

Moira shook her head, “no. She was all quiet about it. Just kept sayin’ that she wanted to make sure they’d have a reliable escort to bring the items to London.”

“An escort would suggest something of value,” Arcady commented.

“Indeed, it would,” Hunter replied, “And if valuable, Black Jack would’ve taken it … but why then take the passengers?”

“To get at you and Doc?” Moira suggested.

Hunter scratched his chin, turning the thought over in his mind, “No … he would have no way of knowing we have any knowledge of the Von Pattersons, the other passengers or even the
Fair Winds
herself.” The captain shrugged, “which is true, we didn’t know of the
Fair Winds,
or the Von Pattersons being aboard.” 

Krumer turned the scarred cylinder over in his hands, lightly rubbing this thumb over the scratches.

Arcady descended from his hover, touching down lightly onto the workbench. “Perhaps, ransom?”

“That would make sense,” the captain agreed, “and would fit Black Jack’s mentality.”

Stepping around Moira, Krumer picked up one of two stubby charcoal pencils from a tin cup on the workbench as the others continued with the conversation. Looking around on the shelves, he located a piece of plain brown butcher paper, half covered with scribblings of unfinished notes. From the layer of dust, it had been forgotten for a while.

Captain Hunter
noticed what Krumer was about, and glanced at him, curious. Unable to determine what the first mate was up to, he looked away and continued the conversation, “Unless he’s changed, he wouldn’t kill anyone right away. He would also need them under lock and key. Someplace very much out of the way. Chances are, at least one or more of the passengers, if not the surviving crew of the
Fair Winds
, would undoubtedly try to escape.”

On the corner of the workbench, Krumer spread out the paper, smoothing out the wrinkles. Across the table, Arcady watched with a fascinated interest, causing him to take a few steps across the table in the orc’s direction. This drew Moira and Captain Hunter’s attention, as well. It was not until Krumer experimentally scrubbed one of the charcoal pencils on the paper that anyone spoke.

“Hey!” Moira exclaimed reaching for the pencil, “them are expensive! I don’t got a lot of those!”

Krumer pulled the charcoal pencil out of her reach. “I’ve no intent to use them up completely. Spirits’ willing! Just humor me for the moment.”

Moira hesitated, then relaxed. “All right, but if ya use ’em both, I want new ones.”

Krumer smiled, “Bargain done.”

The first mate set the pencil aside, then picked up the scarred cylinder, gently wiping it clean against his cotton trousers.

“Mr. Whitehorse,” the captain began, but the first mate held up a hand to stall the captain’s question.

“I’ve a suspicion, Captain, that these aren’t just scratches,” he explained, “I think they are something more.” Brushing one of his black dreadlocks out of his face, he carefully rolled the cylinder in the butcher paper, then lightly scrubbed the charcoal back and forth on the paper.

Moira and Hunter leaned forward, curiosity getting the better of them. Arcady walked his way across the workbench, his brass-plated insect-feet tapping out a skittering, staccato pattern across the wooden table.

Faded at first, a number slowly took shape as Krumer rubbed the charcoal over the paper, exposing the etchings in the cylinder. A few rubbings more, a second number followed the first.
At last, a word eventually appeared.

“It reads ‘Angela’!” Moira exclaimed.

“Yes, and those look to be navigational coordinates,” Arcady said, cocking his head slightly to the left while peering at the numbers.

Hunter smiled warmly, “Ah, clever girl. Knowing that a ship’s opti-telegraphic would be recovered, she left a hidden message.”

Arcady’s wings vibrated while he thought. “That’s quite capital, but why not just record her voice?” He asked curiously, “is her voice box in need of repair?”

“If I had to guess, she was afraid of being heard,” Krumer replied, still lightly scrubbing the charcoal over the paper. “Those pirates were thorough, from searching to laying the traps. A young lady recording a message into the ship’s opti-telegraphic would sure to have been discovered.”

Captain Hunter glanced over the numbers, then the words that followed. “The coordinates I don’t recognize square off. However, I think they are not far from here.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Her choice of words are interesting: ‘Sealed aquila’, ‘have monkey’, ‘Angela’.”

“A monkey?” Moira asked, leaning closer to get a better look at the rubbings.

“There was a monkey?” Arcady asked, just as confused.

“Not according to the manifest,” the captain replied. Anthony glanced over to Krumer, “Are you sure there isn’t more?”