"Dr. Waterhouse a.s.sures us that p.i.s.s-boiling on a very large scale is needed to make phosphorus phosphorus for these Infernal Devices," Mr. Orney reminded them. for these Infernal Devices," Mr. Orney reminded them.
"His account left little to the imagination," Mr. Threader said.
"To do it in London would be difficult-"
"Why? London could not smell any more like p.i.s.s than it does to begin with," Mr. Kikin observed shrewdly.
"It would draw attention, not because it smelt bad, but because it was a queer practice. So the p.i.s.s-boiling probably happens in the countryside. But this would require transportation of p.i.s.s, in large amounts, from a place where there was a lot to be had-viz. a city, e.g., London-to said countryside; a thing not to be accomplished in perfect secrecy."
"You should make inquiries among the Vault men!"
"An excellent idea, Mr. Kikin, and one I had a long time ago," Mr. Orney said. "But my habitation is remote from the banks of the lower Fleet where the Vault men cl.u.s.ter, thick as flies, every night to discharge their loads. As Monsieur Arlanc dwells at Crane Court, five minutes" walk from the said Ditch, I charged him with it. Monsieur Arlanc?"
"I have been very, very busy..." began Henry Arlanc, and was then drowned out by indignant vocalizations from the rest of the Clubb. The Huguenot made a brave show of Gallic dignity until this Parliamentary baying had died down. "But the Justice of the Peace for Southwark has succeeded where I failed. Voila! Voila!"
Arlanc whipped out a pamphlet, and tossed it onto a slate coffin-lid; it skidded to a stop in the pool of light cast by a candle. The cover was printed in great rude lurid type, big enough for Daniel to read without fishing out his spectacles: "THE PROCEEDINGS of the As-sizes of the Peace, As-sizes of the Peace, Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol-Delivery for the Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol-Delivery for the COUNTY OF SURREY. COUNTY OF SURREY."
Below that the letters got small; but Mr. Kikin bent over and read the subt.i.tle aloud: "Being a FULL and TRUE accompt of ye most surprizing, execrable and Horrid CRIMES committed by the Enemies, and just, swift and severe PUNISHMENTS meted out by the Defenders, of the Peace of that County from Friday January 1, to Sat.u.r.day February 27, Anno Domini Anno Domini 1713/14...." 1713/14...."
Mr. Kikin shared an amused look over the candle with Henry Arlanc. It was possible to buy these pamphlets everywhere, which implied that some people-a lot lot of people, actually-were buying them. But no man who was literate enough to read them would admit to it. This sort of literature was supposed to be ignored. For Mr. Arlanc to notice it was uncouth, and for Mr. Kikin to derive amus.e.m.e.nt from it was rude. of people, actually-were buying them. But no man who was literate enough to read them would admit to it. This sort of literature was supposed to be ignored. For Mr. Arlanc to notice it was uncouth, and for Mr. Kikin to derive amus.e.m.e.nt from it was rude. Foreigners and their ways! Foreigners and their ways!
"Forgive me, Monsieur Arlanc, but I have not had the...er...pleasure of reading that doc.u.ment, doc.u.ment," said Mr. Threader. "What does it say?"
"It relates the case of a Mr. Marsh, who was driving his wagon down Lambeth Road one night in December, when he met three young gentlemen who had just emerged from a house of ill repute in St. George"s Fields. As they pa.s.sed each other in the lane, these three young men became so incensed by the odour emanating from Mr. Marsh"s wagon that they drew out their swords and plunged them into the body of Mr. Marsh"s horse, which died instantly, collapsing in its traces. Mr. Marsh set up a hue and cry, which drew the attention of the occupants of a nearby tavern, who rushed out and seized the perpetrators."
"Courageous, that, for a Mobb of Drunks."
"The roads down there are infested infested with highwaymen," Mr. Threader said keenly. "They probably reckoned "twas safer to go out and face them as a company, be it ne"er so ragged, than be picked off one by one as they straggled home." with highwaymen," Mr. Threader said keenly. "They probably reckoned "twas safer to go out and face them as a company, be it ne"er so ragged, than be picked off one by one as they straggled home."
"Imagine their surprise when they found they"d apprehended not highwaymen, but gentlemen!" Mr. Kikin remarked, very amused.
"They had apprehended both, both," said Henry Arlanc.
"What!?"
"Many highwaymen are are gentlemen," said Mr. Threader learnedly. "As "tis beneath the dignity of a Person of Quality to work for a living, why, when he"s gambled and wh.o.r.ed away all his money, he must resort to a life of armed robbery. To do otherwise were dishonorable." gentlemen," said Mr. Threader learnedly. "As "tis beneath the dignity of a Person of Quality to work for a living, why, when he"s gambled and wh.o.r.ed away all his money, he must resort to a life of armed robbery. To do otherwise were dishonorable."
"How come you to know so much of it? I daresay you are a regular subscriber of these pamphlets, sir!" said the delighted Mr. Orney.
"I am on the road several months out of the year, sir, and know more of highwaymen than do you of the very latest advances in Caulking. Caulking."
"What came of it, Monsieur Arlanc?" Daniel inquired.
"On the persons of these three, valuables were found that had been stolen, earlier in the evening, from a coach bound for Dover. The occupants of that coach prosecuted them. As all three were of course literate, they got benefit of clergy. Mr. Marsh does not appear again in the Narration, save as a witness."
"So all that we know of Mr. Marsh is that in the middle of the night he was transporting something down Lambeth Road so foul-smelling that three highwaymen risked the gallows to revenge themselves on his horse!" said Mr. Orney.
"I know a bit more than that, sir," Arlanc said. "I"ve made inquiries along the banks of the Fleet, after dark. Mr. Marsh was indeed a London Vault-man. "Tis considered most strange, by his brethren, that he crossed the River with a full load in the middle of the night."
"You say he was was a Vault-man," Daniel remarked. "What is he now? Dead?" a Vault-man," Daniel remarked. "What is he now? Dead?"
"Out of business, owing to the loss of his horse. Moved back to Plymouth to live with his sister."
"Perhaps we should send one of our number to Plymouth to interview him," suggested Daniel, half in jest.
"Inconceivable! The state of the Clubb"s finances is desperate desperate!" Mr. Threader proclaimed.
Silence then, save for the sound of tongues being bitten. A face or two turned towards Daniel. He He had known Mr. Threader longer than the others; so a decent respect for precedence dictated that he be given the first chance to bite Mr. Threader"s head off. had known Mr. Threader longer than the others; so a decent respect for precedence dictated that he be given the first chance to bite Mr. Threader"s head off.
"We have just doubled the size of our accompt, sir. How can you make such a claim?"
"Not quite doubled, sir, your Piece of Eight came up a ha"p"ny light of a pound."
"And my guinea is several pence heavy, as all the world knows," said Mr. Orney, "so you may supply Brother Daniel"s deficit from my surplus, and keep the change while you are at it."
"Your generosity sets an example to us unredeemed Anglican sinners," said Mr. Threader with a weak smile. "But it does not materially change the Clubb"s finances. Yes, we have twice the a.s.sets today as we had yesterday; but we must consider liabilities liabilities as well." as well."
"I did not know we had any," said the perpetually amused Mr. Kikin, "unless you have been taking our dues to Change Alley, and investing them in some eldritch Derivatives."
"I look to the future, Mr. Kikin. One gets gets what one what one pays for pays for! That is the infallible rule in fish-markets, wh.o.r.ehouses, and Parliament. And it applies with as much force in the world of the thief-taker."
Mr. Threader reveled in the silence that followed. Finally Mr. Orney, who could not stand to see anyone-especially Mr. Threader-enjoy anything, said, "If you mean to hire a thief-taker, sir, with our money, you would do well to propose propose it first, that we may it first, that we may dispute dispute it." it."
"Even before disputing disputing thief-takers, if someone would be so kind as to thief-takers, if someone would be so kind as to define the term define the term for me?" said Mr. Kikin. for me?" said Mr. Kikin.
"Apprehending criminals is oft strenuous, and sometimes mortally dangerous," said Mr. Threader. "So, instead of doing it oneself, one hires a thief-taker to go and do it for one."
"To go out and...hunt down, and physically abduct, someone?"
"Yes," said Mr. Threader mildly. "How else do you suppose justice can ever be served?"
"Police...constables...militia...or something something!" sputtered Mr. Kikin. "But...in an orderly country...you can"t simply have people running around arresting each other!"
"Thank you, sirrah, for your advice upon how to run an orderly country!" Mr. Threader brayed. "Ah, yes, if only England could be more like Muscovy!"
"Gentlemen, gentlemen..." Daniel began. But Mr. Kikin"s fascination prevailed, and he let the argument drop, asking, "How does it work?"
"Generally one posts a reward, and leaves the rest to the natural workings of the market," said Mr. Threader.
"How large a reward?"
"You have penetrated to the heart of the matter, sir," said Mr. Threader. "Since the days of William and Mary, the reward for a common robber or burglar has been ten pounds."
"By convention, or..."
"By royal proclamation, sir!"
Mr. Kikin"s face clouded over. "Hmm, so we are in compet.i.tion with Her Majesty"s government, then..."
"It gets worse. Forty pounds for highway robbers, twenty to twenty-five for horse thieves, even more for murderers. The Clubb, I remind you, has ten pounds, plus or minus a few bits and farthings."
"Stiff compet.i.tion indeed," said Mr. Orney, "and a sign, to those wise enough to heed it, that "tis a waste of time to rely "pon thief-takers."
Before Mr. Threader could say what he thought of Mr. Orney"s brand of wisdom, Mr. Kikin said: "You should have told me before. If the Clubb"s dues are to be p.i.s.sed away on inane things, I must be thrifty. But if it is a matter of posting a reward...to catch an enemy of the Tsar...we could have every thief-taker in London working for us by tomorrow evening!"
Mr. Threader looked perfectly satisfied.
"Do we really want that?" Daniel asked. "Thief-takers have a more vile reputation even than thieves."
"That is of no account. We are not proposing to hire one as a nanny nanny. The viler the better, I say!"
Daniel could see one or two flaws in that line of reasoning. But a glance at the faces of Mr. Orney and Monsieur Arlanc told him he was out-voted. They appeared to think it was splendid if Mr. Kikin wanted to spend the Tsar"s money in this way.
"If there is no further business here," Daniel said, "I thought a tour of the watch-makers" shops of Clerkenwell might be in order."
"To find criminals, criminals, Dr. Waterhouse, let us search among Dr. Waterhouse, let us search among criminals, criminals, not not horologists; horologists; and let us not do it and let us not do it ourselves, ourselves, but have thief-takers-paid for by the Tsar of Muscovy!-do it but have thief-takers-paid for by the Tsar of Muscovy!-do it for for us," said Mr. Threader; and for once, he seemed to speak for the whole Clubb, except for Daniel. "The meeting is adjourned." us," said Mr. Threader; and for once, he seemed to speak for the whole Clubb, except for Daniel. "The meeting is adjourned."
AS A WAVE Pa.s.sES THROUGH a rug that is being shaken, driving before it a front of grit, fleas, apple seeds, tobacco-ashes, pubic hairs, scab-heads, &c., so the expansion of London across the defenseless green countryside pushed before it all who had been jarred loose by Change, or who simply hadn"t been firmly tied down to begin with. A farmer living out in the green pastures north of the city might notice the buildings creeping his way, year by year, but not know that his pasture was soon to become part of London until drunks, footpads, wh.o.r.es, and molly-boys began to congregate under his windows. a rug that is being shaken, driving before it a front of grit, fleas, apple seeds, tobacco-ashes, pubic hairs, scab-heads, &c., so the expansion of London across the defenseless green countryside pushed before it all who had been jarred loose by Change, or who simply hadn"t been firmly tied down to begin with. A farmer living out in the green pastures north of the city might notice the buildings creeping his way, year by year, but not know that his pasture was soon to become part of London until drunks, footpads, wh.o.r.es, and molly-boys began to congregate under his windows.
As a boy Daniel had been able to open an upper-storey window in back of Drake"s house on Holborn, and gaze across one mile of downs and swales to an irregular patch of turf called Clerkenwell Green: a bit of common ground separating St. James"s and St. John"s. Each of these was an ancient religious order, therefore, a jumbled compound of graveyards, houses, ancient Popish cloisters, and out-buildings. Like all other Roman churches in the realm, these had become Anglican, and perhaps been sacked a little bit, during Henry VIII"s time. And when Cromwell had come along to replace Anglicanism with a more radical creed, they had been sacked more thoroughly. Now what remained of them had been engulfed by London.
Yet it was better to be engulfed than to be on the edge, for the city had a kind of order that the frontier wanted. Whatever crimes, disruptions, and atrocities had occurred around Clerkenwell Green while it was being ringed with new buildings, had now migrated slightly northwards, to be replaced by outrages of a more settled and organized nature.
Half a mile northwest of Clerkenwell Green was a place where the fledgling Fleet ran, for a short distance, parallel to the road to Hampstead. Between road and river the ground was low, and shiny with shifting sheets of water. But on the opposite bank, nearer to Clerkenwell, the ground was firm enough that shrubs and vegetables could be planted in it without drowning, and buildings set on it without sinking into the muck. A hamlet had gradually formed there, called Black Mary"s Hole.
A bloke wanting to leave the urban confines of Clerkenwell Green and venture out across the fields toward Black Mary"s Hole would have to contend with a few obstacles. For directly in his path stood the ancient compound of St. James"s, and on the far side of that was a new-built prison, and just beyond that, a bridewell run by Quakers. And the sort of bloke who pa.s.sed the time of day going up to Black Mary"s Hole would instinctively avoid such establishments. So he would begin his journey by dodging westwards and exiting Clerkenwell Green through a sort of sphincter that led into Turnmill Street. To the left, or London-wards, Turnmill led into the livestock markets of Smithfield, and was lined with shambles, tallow-chandleries, and knackers" yards: hardly a tempting place for a stroll. To the right, or leading out to open country, it forked into two ways: on the right, Rag Street, and on the left, Hockley-in-the-Hole, which presumably got its name from the fact that it had come into being along a bend of the Fleet, which there had been bridged in so many places that it was vanishing from human ken.
Hockley-in-the-Hole was a sort of recreational annex to the meat markets. If animals were done to death for profit in the butcher-stalls of Smithfield, they were baited, fought, and torn asunder for pleasure in the c.o.c.k-pits and bear-rings of Hockley-in- the-Hole.
Rag Street was not a great deal more pleasant, but it did get one directly out of the city. A hundred paces along, the buildings fell away, and were replaced by gardens, on the right. On the left the buildings went on for a bit, but they were not so unsavoury: several bakeries, and then a bath where the Quality came to take the waters. In a few hundred paces the buildings ceased on that side as well. From that point it was possible to see across a quarter-mile of open ground to Black Mary"s Hole. This was, in other words, the first place where a Londoner, crazed by crowding and choked from coal-smoke, could break out into the open. The impulse was common enough. And so the entire stretch of territory from the Islington Road on the east to Tottenham Court Road on the west had become a sort of deranged park, with Black Mary"s Hole in the center of it. It was where people resorted to have every form of s.e.xual congress not sanctioned by the Book of Common Prayer, and where footpads went to prey upon them, and thief-takers to spy on the doings of the footpads and set one against another for the reward money.
Baths and tea-gardens provided another reason to go there-or, barring that, a convenient pretext for gentlefolk whose real motives had nothing to do with bathing or tea. And-complicating matters terribly-any number of people went there for childishly simple and innocent purposes. Picknickers were as likely to come here as murderers. On his first visit to this district, Daniel had heard someone creeping along behind him, and been certain it was a footpad, raising his cudgel to dash Daniel"s brain"s out; turning around, he had discovered a Fellow of the Royal Society brandishing a long-handled b.u.t.terfly net.
Just at this place where London stopped, on the road to Black Mary"s Hole, was a bit of land accurately described, by members of Daniel"s Clubb, as a swine-yard with a mound of rubble in it. As a boy looking out the window of Drake"s house, Daniel had probably flicked his gaze over it a hundred times and made naught of it. But recently he had got a bundle of letters from Ma.s.sachusetts. One of them had been from Enoch Root, who"d got wind of Daniel"s plan to build a sort of annex to the Inst.i.tute of Technologickal Arts somewhere around London.
For a long time I have phant"sied that one day I should find the landlord of the ruined Temple in Clerkenwell, and make something of that property.
Daniel had rolled his eyes upon reading these words. If Enoch Root was a real estate developer, then Daniel was a Turkish harem-girl! It was typical Enochian meddling: he knew there was a Templar crypt under this swine-lot that was about to be gobbled by London, and didn"t want it to be filled in, or used as a keg-room for a gin-house, and he hoped Daniel or someone would do something about it. Daniel bridled at this trans-Atlantic nagging. But Root had a knack for finding, or creating, alignments between his interests and those of the people whose lives he meddled with. Daniel needed a place to build things. Clerkenwell, though it was obviously unstable, muddy, smelling of the knacker, and loud with the screams and roars of fighting beasts, Regarded as Unsafe by Persons of Quality, was a suitable place for Daniel. He could get to Town or Country-or escape from either-with but a few steps, and none of the neighbors were apt to complain of queer doings, or pay any note to nocturnal visitors.
The parcel was an irregular pentagon about a hundred paces wide. Within it, the sunken ruin was situated off-center, away from the road to Black Mary"s Hole, near a vertex that pointed back towards Clerkenwell. The gardens of a neighboring Spaw came up close to it on one side, making the parcel seem larger than it was. It was one of countless crumbs of territory that had been worried off the edges of the Church"s stupendous holdings in Tudor days. Tracing the changes in its ownership since then had been a good job for an unemployed boffin who knew a lot of Latin-Daniel had made two trips to Oxford to research it. He had discovered that ownership of the land had pa.s.sed into the hands of a Cavalier family that had gone to France during Cromwell days and, owing to an ensuing pattern of marriages, b.a.s.t.a.r.dy, suspicious deaths, and opportunistic religious conversions, essentially become French people and were unlikely ever to come back. Twenty-five years of almost continual war between Britain and France had left them profoundly ignorant of suburban London real estate trends. Daniel had pa.s.sed all of this on to Roger at the Kit-Cat Clubb. Letters had been despatched to France, and a few weeks later Roger had informed him that he could build anything he wanted there, provided it might later be resold at a profit. Daniel had found a mediocre architect and told him to design houses with shops in the ground floor, wrapping around three sides of the property, embracing a court with the ruin in the middle of it.
As he emerged from the half-collapsed anteroom of the crypt-the last member of the Clubb to depart-white blindness came over him because of the brilliance of the cloudy sky. He shaded his eyes and looked down at the luminous gra.s.s. A small round wrinkled thing was next to his shoe, looking like a faery"s coin-purse. He kicked it over and realized it was a knotted sheep-gut condom.
His eyes had adjusted sufficiently now that he could look at the nearby hog-wallow without suffering too much. It was all dried up, as the tenant had been encouraged to take his swine elsewhere. Finally he could remove his hand from his brow and trace the lines of surveyors" stakes marking the foundations of the new buildings. When walls began to rise up upon those foundations, they"d screen this yard from the road, and then the only people who"d be able to see into it would be a few of those Spaw-goers, and perhaps-if they had sharp eyes, or owned perspective gla.s.ses-inmates of the new prison on Clerkenwell Close, a quarter-mile distant. But for what it was worth, they"d be the better cla.s.s of prisoners who could afford to pay the gaolers for upper-storey rooms.
ACCUSTOMED TO THE TEMPO of Trinity College and of the Royal Society, he"d thought that the Clubb"s meeting would go much longer. But Threader, Orney, and Kikin had nothing in common but decisiveness, and a will to get on with it. His watch told him he was very early for his appointment with Sir Isaac Newton. This would have been a blessing to most, for who"d want to be the insolent wretch who kept Sir Isaac waiting? To Daniel, who was looking forward to the meeting about as much as another bladder operation, it was a d.a.m.ned nuisance. He desired some pointless distraction; and so he decided to go call on the Marquis of Ravenscar. of Trinity College and of the Royal Society, he"d thought that the Clubb"s meeting would go much longer. But Threader, Orney, and Kikin had nothing in common but decisiveness, and a will to get on with it. His watch told him he was very early for his appointment with Sir Isaac Newton. This would have been a blessing to most, for who"d want to be the insolent wretch who kept Sir Isaac waiting? To Daniel, who was looking forward to the meeting about as much as another bladder operation, it was a d.a.m.ned nuisance. He desired some pointless distraction; and so he decided to go call on the Marquis of Ravenscar.
There was no way to get from here to Roger"s house that was not dangerous, offensive, or both. Daniel opted for offensive, i.e., he attempted to walk through the middle of Hockley-in-the-Hole. It lay within earshot, just on the other side of some buildings. What made it offensive was the sort of people gathered there on this Sat.u.r.day morning: c.o.c.kneys come up to watch fights between beasts, and to partic.i.p.ate in others. But they also made it safe, after a fashion. Pick-pockets were all over the place, but footpads-whose modus operandi modus operandi was to beat victims senseless-couldn"t work in a crowd. was to beat victims senseless-couldn"t work in a crowd.
At the place where Saffron Hill Road disgorged its push of Londoners into the Hole, two men, stripped to the waist, were circling around each other with their fists up. One of them already had a red knuckle-print on his cheek, and a huge smear of dirt on one shoulder where he"d tumbled into the street. They were bulky coves, probably meat-cutters from Smithfield, and at least a hundred men had already formed a ring around them, and begun to lay wagers. All foot-traffic had to squeeze through a strait no more than a fathom wide between this storm of elbows and the building-fronts along the north side of the Hole: a line-up of taverns and of smudgy enterprises that looked as if they didn"t want to be noticed.
A man was lying full-length on the ground at the foot of one building, dead or asleep, creating further eddies and surges in the crowd as people dodged around him. He looked like an apparition, a prophecy of what would become of Daniel if he were to lose his footing there. So Daniel made no pretense of dignity. He sidestepped as far as he could to the right, so that he was almost cowering against the sheer brown-brick face of a building, and shifted his walking-stick to his right hand so it wouldn"t get kicked out from under him, and put his hand through the wrist-loop in case it did. He let the traffic carry him into the flume.
He had got about halfway through, and begun to sense daylight ahead, when he sensed unease propagating like a wave through the crowd ahead of him, and looked up to see a great brute of a horse, in black leather tack with silver ornament, drawing a small carriage. Its design was outlandish: all stretched out and bent around, recalling the shape of a pouncing cheetah. In the moment before he realized that he was in trouble, his mind identified it as one of the new rigs called phaethons. It was going to squeeze through this bottleneck. Or rather, it would trot through without breaking stride, and let the pedestrians do all the squeezing.
The crowd couldn"t believe it-"twas an impossibility! Yet the vehicle, twenty feet long and eight high, drawn by a ton of prancing, iron-shod flesh, was not slowing down. The ends of the carriage-poles protruded like jousting-lances. One of those could go through your head like a pike through a pumpkin, and if you dodged that, you might still have your foot crushed under a wheel and face the always-tricky dilemma of amputation vs. gangrene. A hundred men did the rational thing. The sum of those rational choices was called panic. Daniel"s contribution to the panic was as follows: perhaps eight feet ahead of him he saw a recessed shop-doorway, and made up his mind that while everyone else was gaping at the phaethon, he could squirt forward between the crowd on his left, and the shop-window on his right, and dodge into it. He ducked under the shoulder of a bigger man and scurried forward.
Halfway there, his left peripheral vision went dark as a large number of onrushing bodies blotted out the white sky.
Daniel saw very clearly that he was going to die now, in the following manner: smashed against the front of this shop by tons of meat and bone. The shop-window would not give way; it was made of small square panes in a grid of wooden mullions as thick as his wrist. Eventually it might buckle under the pressure of the crowd, but all of his ribs would give way sooner. He tried to lunge forward another step, but it only got worse; and his foot came down too soon, on unsteady ground. He had stepped on the torso of the unconscious man he"d noticed moments earlier. He lost his balance, but gained six inches" alt.i.tude, and this triggered some sort of climbing instinct. If the mullions of the window were stout enough to crush his ribcage, then they could at least support his weight while they were doing it. He flung both arms in the air like a Baptist in ecstasy, clutched at a horizontal bar, and pulled himself up while pushing with both feet against that sleeping or dead man, all at the same moment as he was being picked up by the mob, like a reed that has fallen into the surf, and slammed against the building. His feet were no longer touching anything. The force of gravity was countered by several different blokes" knees, shoulders, hips, and heads, which had all struck him over the course of a brief, bony barrage. If they"d driven him under he"d be a sorry case, but they"d pushed him up. One of his cheeks had slammed up against a windowpane so hard that the gla.s.s had popped half out of its frame and was making ominous ticking noises very close to his eyeball.
He no longer needed to support his own weight, so he allowed his left hand to release its grip on the mullion above, brought it down right past his nose, insinuated his fingers between jawbone and window, and crooked his fingers over the edge of the frame, taking advantage of the loose pane by getting a bit of a handhold on its mullion, so that when the crowd collapsed he would not simply fall backwards and crack his head on the ground.
The air inside the shop felt cooler on his fingertips and smelt of pipe-smoke. He had no choice but to stare through the gla.s.s for about five seconds. In the architect"s mind"s eye, this had probably been a lovely shop-window where ladies would coo over pretty displays. And maybe it would be that some day, if Hockley-in-the-Hole ever became fashionable. But for now a board had been put up inside of it, a bit more than arm"s length inside the gla.s.s. Daniel couldn"t tell whether it was a backdrop for display, or a barrier against intruders. It had been covered with green fabric a long time ago, and the fabric had been bleached by the sun, as this was a south-facing window. It had gone nearly white everywhere except where the sun"s light had been blocked by wares, hung on that board for display. No wares remained on it now. But their caught shadows were clearly visible. Daniel"s first thought was pendulums, because the shapes were circular, depending from slim cords. But no one bought pendulums save Natural Philosophers and mesmerists. It had to have been watches, hanging on chains.
The phaethon clattered past and the crowd relaxed, presenting a whole new universe of hazards to Daniel. A lot of chaps who had been leaning against other chaps who had, in the end, been leaning against Daniel, now decided to right themselves by pushing off hard. So waves of pressure thrust Daniel against the grid, again and again, so hard that he felt it popping underneath him. One of the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons on his coat shattered a pane, spraying the watch-shadows with skewed triangles of gla.s.s. Then his support went out from under him and he fell, braking himself-as planned-with the one hand he"d crooked over the windowframe. His hip swung into the store-front and cracked another pane.
Now that the loosened pane was no longer being forced inwards by his cheek, it had sprung back and trapped his knuckles under its sharp edge. He was caught on tiptoe, like a prisoner strung up in a dungeon. But his right hand was free, the walking-stick still dangling by its wrist-thong, so with some ridiculous tossing and squirming motions he got a grip on its middle, raised its knotty head, and bashed out the loose pane to get himself free. The man who"d been lying on the ground rolled over onto his back, sat up convulsively, and blew a cloud of blood from his nostrils. Daniel hurried on; and just as he walked past the front door of the building he felt it opening. Three paces farther along he heard an "Oy, you!" but Hockley-in-the-Hole had become more riotous than ever and he could plausibly ignore this. He simply could not begin a conversation with the sort of person who would lurk in the back of such a building.
He walked faster, following the leftward curve of Hockley-in-the-Hole. A miasma of watery smells, issuing from gutters and crevices in the pavement, told him he"d crossed over the entombed Fleet. He dodged right into Windmill Hill, though it was a long time since there"d been a discernible hill, or a windmill, there. He then forced himself to walk straight west, without looking back, for a hundred paces. That brought him clear of Hockley, and into the center of the largest open place in this part of town, where Leather Lane, Liquor-pond Street, and several other ways came together in a crazed, nameless interchange half the size of Charing Cross. There, finally, he turned around.
"Your watch, sir," said a bloke, "or so I surmise."
All the air drained out of Daniel"s lungs. For ten minutes he had felt clever and spry. Now he looked down at himself and saw wreckage. To inventory all that had gone wrong with his clothes and his toilette would take more time than he could spare; but his watch was unquestionably missing. He took a step toward the bloke, then a smaller step. But the other fellow seemed to"ve made up his mind that he"d not pursue Daniel any farther today. He stood and waited, and the longer he waited, the more he seemed to glower. He was a great big cove, built to chop wood all day long. He had the most profound whiskerage Daniel had seen in many a year, and looked as if he could grow a jet-black beaver-pelt out of his face in about a week"s time. He might have shaved forty-eight hours ago. But he"d had little incentive to do it any more frequently than that, since his cheeks and chin had suffered badly from smallpox, leaving scars atop other scars. In sum, the man"s head looked like a Dutch oven forged over a dying fire with a ball-peen hammer. His hair hung round his face in a way that reminded Daniel of the young Robert Hooke; but where Hooke had been sickly and bent, this man was made like a meat-wagon. Yet he was holding Daniel"s watch in the most curious delicate way, the time-piece resting on a half-acre of pink palm, the chain drawn back and draped over the black-creviced fingers of the other hand. He was displaying displaying it. it.
Daniel took another step forward. He had the ridiculous phant"sy that the man would dart away if Daniel reached out: a reflex Daniel had learned in childhood games of keep-away, and never quite got rid of.
Something did not make sense. He looked up into the man"s gray eyes and noticed crows" feet. He was older than he looked, probably in his forties. The beginnings of an explanation there.
"You have judged me aright," the man said, in an encouraging tone. "I am a horologist gone bad."
"You deal in stolen time-"
"Don"t we all, sir? Each striking his own bargain, as "twere."
"I was going to say, "time-pieces," but you interrupted me."
" "Tis a common error of those who buy time dear, and sell it cheap, Dr. Waterhouse."
"You know my name? What is yours?"