Imperial Clock (The Steam Clock Legacy) (34 page)

“
In the non-hunter-and-prey sense, I suppose so.”

He laughed and
helped her to her feet, then gently took her by the hand up two more flights of steps until they reached a white cordon chain with a sign that read, Private—Staff Only Beyond This Point. William lifted her over it, and after clambering up another, much narrower flight in total darkness but for a few successive matches he lit, they soon trod the dove-grey stone of the museum roof on a windless night. She looked out over the waning embers of industry, onto a city-wide glut of gaslit smog and shadow.

A half mile aw
ay stood the Leviacrum tower. It pierced not only the smog but the moonlit clouds high above as well. She couldn’t see its pinnacle. Lights inside porthole windows dotted the giant edifice from top to bottom. They flickered different colours through the polluted atmosphere as though the tower itself were alive somehow, perspiring, doomed to forever burn the midnight oil. Few airship lights were visible across London, and none in the immediate vicinity save those of a small dirigible hovering directly above them, at a height of about a thousand feet. She only noticed it because William was pointing.

“
Friends of yours?” she asked.

“
Some of them. I know Tangeni’s up there.”

“
How strange, to just be hovering there. For what purpose?”

“
They’re signalling to a special friend.” The lad’s smile as he gazed up smacked of pride, of a thrill of certain knowledge the rest of London was ignorant of. She cast her mind back to his tales of prehistory, of the special friends he’d made there: Tangeni, up in the dirigible above them; Verity Champlain and Lord Garrett Embrey, trapped in the Cretaceous; and Professor Reardon, the inventor of time travel, reclusive inhabitant of...the tower!

“
You’re signalling Cecil Reardon?”

“
Exactly. Look, Meredith!” He dashed over to her, produced a pair of spectrometer goggles—

“
That’s fine. I have my own. Where are we looking?”

“
You have a Cavendish lens on yours?”

“
Yes.”

“
Good. About two thirds of the way up the tower—the floor with only one light, a pulsing Cavendish lamp a few windows right of centre. Do you see it?”

“
Very clearly. My God, is that Reardon?”

“
Certainly is. We communicate back and forth once a week.”

“
How exciting. Smuggling secrets, you mean?”

“
We exchange snippets of news, yes, but more importantly we play a game, the professor and I. One move each per week.”

“
What sort of game?”

“
Snakes and Ladders.”

Meredith lowered her goggles. “
You mean to tell me you go to all this trouble, criss-crossing coded messages through thin air, using a
dirigible
...just so you can play a dumb board game?”

“
It means a lot to the professor and me. We used to play it during our adventure. It helps keep his spirits up. He’s a prisoner in there, you know, and we’re doing our best to think of a way to break him out. We’ve tried all sorts. Nothing’s worked...yet.”

“
How long have you been doing this—signalling like this?”

“
Six years.”

“
Six
years?
”

“
Uh-huh. And I’ll never stop, not until he’s out of there. Not until he’s—oh, there it is, his farewell for the night. Have a good one, Cecil. See you next week, my friend.” And to Meredith, “Now you know why I’ve always been so secretive, why I had to change my surname from Ransdell to Elgin. If Agnes Polperro and her cronies found out where I was, they’d send half the empire after me, and I’d be a prisoner up there, too.”

“
But why?”

“
Because they never found the crucial missing piece of the professor’s time machine, so they’ve never been able to reproduce his experiment. And he’s never cooperated in building a new one.”

“
You
have the missing piece?” She watched him with even greater fascination. And to think, this time last year she’d treated him with almost criminal disdain. How wrong could a girl be?

“
Tangeni and I smuggled it to Professor Sorensen in Norway. That was Cecil’s final instruction to us before he was taken—to safeguard it, to never let it fall into Leviacrum hands.”

“
I see. And if you ever do manage to free Cecil from the tower, he’ll be able to reproduce his experiment for the Coalition? Maybe turn the tide of the conflict somehow?”

“
Oh, I don’t know about that, Meredith. To be honest, I just want the old man back. I miss him.”

She sighed, placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and watched the solitary dirigible sail away into the
never-ending gloom. “I know the feeling, brother.”

Chapter Sixteen

Confluence

From the handsome ribbons streaming from the open windows of slow-moving automobiles, and the passengers
’ impeccable and colourful attire, Meredith knew she was overtaking a convoy of party guests. She raced along the ring-road, her speedometer needle never lower than thirty-five miles per hour. She’d bought her Mulcaster Mk. III second-hand from Jessop’s garage the other side of Vincey Park, for under two hundred pounds, a good price for a racer, and even better in that Jessop was letting her pay in monthly instalments.

The journey from London had been a belter, her best drive yet
—she’d taken the long way round via Dover and Brighton, hogging the coast at full throttle, cornering the Mulcaster like crazy as its huge rubber tyres tossed up dust and loose gravel behind her. Being exposed to the elements hadn’t helped, though, and her clothes were in a sorry state, mucked up beyond recognition; a good thing she’d stopped off at her old home to freshen up and change into her party gown.

Ha! No wonder the gue
sts looked twice as she passed. Her petticoats and the skirt of her gown had to be doing their butterfly thing, owing to her forward-crouch driving posture, while her leg-of-mutton sleeves flapped in the wind on either side. At the turn for the Auric Estate, she jammed the brake pedal with her right foot and spun the elliptical steering wheel, skidding perfectly onto the shale driveway. Some fool honked his horn behind her, so she opened the pressure release valve, letting off a blast of steam from the tail exhausts.

That
’ll teach ‘em.

The enormous manor house stood deceptively higher than the surrounding grounds
, on top of a natural mound. Besides the beauty of its architecture, which was striking, almost palatial, like something from Versailles, the house was situated in a hug of maples, beeches and hornbeams. An ostentatious baroque fountain decorated with cherubs and griffons and other hideous things dominated the front of the grounds. To its left, an enormous tent had been erected for the protection of vehicles from the heavy rainfall forecast that night. A considerate touch. Meredith followed the directions given by the uniformed attendants, but quickly held up proceedings due to her exceedingly poor reversing skills. In her defence, she had bought the thing for racing, not for playing vehicular chess.

“
Merry!”

Such a welcome voice.
But who
was
this waving at her? Where Meredith’s new apparel had drawn attention in London for being avant-garde, even risqué, the sight of poor dear Sonja dolled-up like a mannequin princess and squeezed into an exquisite, traditional-to-the-last-stitch ball gown was far more shocking. Every trace of the awkward tomboy was gone. Either her fairy godmother had called in a few magic debts to pull this off or else Sonja, in the few weeks they’d been apart, really had become a society woman.

The idea
stiffened Meredith, while Sonja’s walk was uncharacteristically graceful at the top of the steps. Her kid sister greeted guests as though she’d glad-handed all her life.

“
Merry, it’s
so
good to see you.” Sonja gave her a hug, then whispered, “Thank God you came to rescue me. These people are positively horrid.”

“
I know. I’ve had a belly-full in London.”

“
Should we speed away before they smother us? Your car looks perfect for the task. It’s—Oh, hello, Mrs. Abernathy, nice of you to come—Thank you for saying so—Yes, Derek mentioned your husband just this morning—and it’s lovely to meet you in person too.” She beat a hasty retreat from the latest throng approaching from the vehicle tent, pulling Meredith with her inside the house. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. All this politeness—they want me in a diabetic coma, I just know it. Oh no! Quick, on your guard. Here they are.”

T
he ornamental middle-aged couple sorting guests in the foyer needed no introduction. King and Queen Auric were seasoned pros, polite to a fault. He was more suave and congenial than Meredith had expected, while Mrs. Auric was a sunny hostess of the summeriest order.

“
Sebastian, Wilhelmina, I’d like to introduce my older sister, Meredith. She’s currently residing with Lady Catarina Fairchild in London.”

Ex
tra points for the reference.

“
Pleased to meet you, my dear,” said Mrs. Auric.

“
Likewise, ma’am. And sir, how do you do?”

A curt, dutifu
l bow from the man who hated her surname. “Very well, thank you. Your journey from London was a pleasant one?”

“
A thrilling one. I sped—I mean spent the whole journey looking at the scenery.” One of the dumber things to have escaped her mouth, but it was better than the truth, for them at least. Sonja rolled her eyes, nudged Meredith for an elaboration. Nothing sprang to mind.

“
Find us in the ballroom shortly, Meredith—” Mrs. Auric peered at the line of guest queued at the doorway, “—and we’ll talk some more. I’m looking forward to it.”

“
Yes, ma’am. Me too.”

Sonja hustled her away across the crowded foyer, where partygoers seemed to
be migrating to a room through double doors, behind the great staircase. “Well, that’s over, at least. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you to the mercy of these vampires for long. Soon as I’ve finished my turnstile duty I’ll come back for you—but in the meantime, I think you’d better start the evening with someone you know. Now where is the little—ah, there you go, two points to starboard, just past the four hags over there. Do you see him?”

“
No. Who?” The height and length of the ballroom exceeded what she’d imagined, as did its opulence. A series of extraordinary floor-to-ceiling murals depicted various famous British achievements, mostly military involving sailing ships, airships and diving bells, but several featured the Leviacrum towers at sunset, in twilight, at different stages of its construction. In other words, the place was an Imperial shrine.

“
Parnell. He was first to arrive, poor lad. At least he brought Ethel with him—I’m glad about that. This would’ve been torture for him otherwise.”

“
Parnell! Good old Parnell.” She still hadn’t spotted him, perhaps because he was dressed to the nines and little resembled the bookworm she knew. “Who else did you get to invite?”

“
That’s about it, I’m afraid. I thought about sending to a few of the girls from school but then I remembered they all hate me. Let’s see, there was Ginny McGann from tennis; she had a prior engagement. The Astles from the newsagents wanted to come but when I mentioned Auric Manor they crawled into their shells—much too hoity-toity for them, they said. But I did get a card and a nice present. Um, that’s all. Everyone I know is either unreachable or uninvitable—the Van Persies would have been on the list if it was my house—and, well, yes, it’s you and Parnell flying the flag for me. Oh, and some chap telephoned this morning from London, said he’s a friend of yours and asked if it was all right if he came. I said yes. But for the life of me I can’t remember his name. Too many distractions.”

“
Not Donnelly? He told me he couldn’t make it.”

“
No, not him. Blast, if only I’d written it down. Ah well, we’ll soon find out, won’t we. Meantime, take it easy on Parnell, will you? I shan’t be long.”

“
You might want to up your mainsail there before you go,” advised Meredith, motioning to Sonja’s off the shoulder gown which had slipped rather too low for propriety on one side.

“
Yikes!” Blushing, she quickly hoisted it and set sail for harbour duty at the front door.

Meredith ventured out to find Parnell. She wondered who the scallywag
caller from London might be? Whoever it was, why hadn’t he asked
her
permission to attend? All very mysterious.

“
Hello, Meredith.” Ethel Steenwyck flagged Meredith over with a peach napkin. She made up with spirit and good humour for what her drab gown lacked in sparkle. “Come and join us.”