Chapter Three
The visits to their various relatives were mercifully brief this year, the whole lot squeezed into a single afternoon. In between stops, Father and Mother speculated on Mr. Mulqueen’s story—his background, where he’d fought, the likeliest reasons for him obtaining such a prodigious clockwork limb—and really seemed to enjoy themselves. They might have still been a little shaken up by the crash, and needed this game to distract them, but Edmond hadn’t seen them as fascinated by anyone in a long time. It sounded more like a tipsy round of charades. He, too, found himself playing along, but not aloud.
“I didn’t notice any foreign inflection in his speech,” Mother said. “My guess is he served most of his career in a British colony, around British people, if he left these shores at all.”
“You sure you’re not on the Yard’s payroll?” It seemed to tickle Father, how much better than him she was at this.
“Three words for you, dear—the book club.” She grinned. “You don’t really think we spend all that time dissecting Madame Bovary, do you?”
Nice one, Mother. Let him chew on that for a while.
“Hmm, more like Wilkie Collins, from the sounds of it.” Father tipped his hat to one of his colleagues across the street, Mr. Lewisham from the Leviacrum. The moustached man waved back, and the exchange appeared to silence Father. He didn’t speak for the next few minutes, instead just listened to Mother’s clever deductions.
“Did you notice the frayed stitching where his epaulettes had been removed—I’d say ripped off rather than plucked professionally. Is that what happens when you’re discharged? Maybe he was disgraced. And his general reaction to what happened; I can understand a civilian man being shaken like that, but a seasoned military officer? Far be it from me to find fault, though. Good Lord, no. We were less than a second away from... In any event, he did the army proud.”
It was late afternoon when they reached home. Their housekeeper, Mrs. Simpkins, had decorated the front door with a holly wreath and a pair of miniature bells, while inside, around the windows, she’d hung an elaborate, beautifully coloured tinsel-and-papier-mâché border. A medley of Christmas carols on the gramophone accompanied her sewing in the living room. She looked especially pretty today in her shiny green dress and with her red hair tied into buns. Her smooth, pale skin and pink cheeks made her look about half her real age, which was forty-five. Edmond hadn’t realized she was coming around today. He blushed when she cleared her throat and glared down at his feet.
“Sorry, Mrs. Simpkins. I—we were—you’ll never guess what happened.”
“Let’s start that again, shall we?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He walked back to the vestibule to take his boots off. For her, anything. Sometimes he found it hard to breathe when she entered a room, and he was fairly sure she’d never seen his face at its regular colour. At least she seemed oblivious to his shame. There was nothing he could do to hide it. Beetroot—the only colour he swore he could feel. His crush had started in Spring, earlier that year, when she’d accompanied Mother and Father to his cricket final in Winchester. He’d taken a corky ball to the forehead, and was a little dazed. Before the second innings had begun, she’d kissed the bruise better and told him he was the best fielder in the match, and she’d batted her eyelashes like that duchess he’d seen in a Kinetoscope when he’d been little.
Yes, it was fair to say, he’d been in love with Mrs. Simpkins since that day.
“Anything the matter, ma’am?” she asked Mother.
“We had a very narrow escape. A car skidded into the fish and chip shop on Bishopsgate, missed Edmond and I by a hair’s breadth. We’re having a guest for dinner, Mrs. Simpkins—the man who bravely plucked us out of harm’s way. Set an extra place this evening, please.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m relieved you weren’t hurt. I’ll say a special prayer tonight, thanking the Lord for His intervention.”
“Thank you kindly.”
Edmond peered around the door, still with his boots on in the vestibule. “Mother, can I play out for a bit? Sean Barlow and Golly MacDonald have got their toboggans,” he lied.
“Hmm, I don’t know whether that’s a good idea. These roads—”
“We’ll stay away from any roads. The path down by the cemetery, that’s where the sledders go.”
She glanced at Father, who had his back to Edmond, then took off her hat to reveal frizzy, mousy brown curls. “Very well. Be back in plenty of time to change for dinner. And wrap up. Last time, you didn’t even wear a hat.”
“Yes, Mother,” he groaned, then, quick as a pickpocket, sneaked his father’s miniature dynamo lamp out of his spare topcoat on the hanger and placed it inside his own jacket. He’d need that to find his way back later. Then he picked up his catapult Mother had banned him from using—the steel one with vulcanized rubber strips and a leather pocket—and stuffed it under his belt.
One of Father’s droll jokes made the women laugh. Good. Edmond bolted out, chuffed that they’d all forgotten about him not having had any lunch. They were distracted. But he, too, had more important things than food or tobogganing on his mind. He’d promised himself he would get to see the emporium today no matter what happened. By the time he got there, it would be closed early for Christmas Eve. He loosened his scarf, grinned.
Closed to people with no imagination, that is.
Out of the five friends he had in mind for the break-in, two were not at home and a third, Brandy Maguire, said she was grounded until after the New Year for helping herself to her grandfather's absinthe. That left his best friend, John Roebuck, and the cock of the street, Saul Lewisham, whose father Edmond had seen earlier from across the road. Both lads admitted they were at a loose end, their families all “chinning it”—a phrase doing the rounds at schools, meaning to work hard for no good reason—all martyrs inevitably took one on the chin.
“All right, Rear-End, you show us how to get in, I’ll take it from there.” In the four years since they’d met, Saul had never once used Edmond’s correct surname.
“My pleasure, Fat Man.” In all fairness, Saul wasn’t quite as chubby as he used to be, but Edmond never let an insult slide, however playful. And neither of them had ever taken offence. “Just so you know, it won’t be empty this time. There’s a man staying there—some old geezer.” No matter how hard he tried, Edmond’s choice of words usually bent to those that would impress Saul and John.
“You mean a caretaker?” John hesitated before stepping out of his front door. His overbearing mother had dressed him like an Eskimo at sun-down, with two scarves, a hood over his Klondike hat, and fur-lined Wellies almost up to his knees. Not the most nimble attire for sneaking in through tight gaps. But John was a hardened little rebel—he’d earned his stripes over the years, and had the reputation of not giving a fig for getting caught once he’d started a mission. That, in turn, had made him more and more reluctant to get involved at the outset. He’d paid the price for his recklessness more than once.
“A retired soldier, not far off coffin duty. Has a weird clockwork leg he limps about on. We met him earlier, on his way back there. A bit of a freak.” Shame jabbed at Edmond’s gut. He hated, hated how he’d skipped all the facts that mattered most to him about Mr. Mulqueen—the timely heroics, the polite, friendly manner, the stupendous design of his mechanical limb, the mystery of his letters. Why did have to say what his friends wanted to hear all the time? Is that what they did for him? Why were they all so pathetic?
“Ah, he won’t be a problem.” Saul grabbed hold of John, closed the front door behind him and frog-marched him down the gritted steps. “This’ll be just like old times—no fear nor nothing, right, John?”
“Um, can’t we go skating instead?”
“On your arse, if you like.” Saul shoved him into the street, where John slipped on his backside. The little trouper got straight up and set about pummelling his much bigger opponent, with predictably laughable results. The full force of John’s swipes merely thwacked o
n Saul’s padded coat. The latter’s plump, reddish cheeks dimpled as he laughed himself silly.
To even the odds, Edmond grinned and crouched behind the bully, flicked his smaller friend a wink. John pursed his lips, took a run-up and barged Saul backward off his feet.
“The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” Edmond sped off with his nippy friend in tow.
“You little buggers!” Saul lumbered after them, shedding snow and his flat cap onto the road. “Just wait till I get hold of you, Rear-End. You’ll both piss ice, I swear.”
Edmond found a few small rocks and fired one at him with his slingshot, missed on purpose. Then he flung another at a snowman across the street, using his best aim, strips almost at full arm’s length. A headshot! He was by far the most accurate of anybody he knew with a catapult, which was one of the reasons Mother had banned it.
Ha! Try banning it now.
He and John both played cricket and soccer and had pretty good footing, while Saul’s idea of sport was sinking shandies and snooker balls at the local pub. He didn’t catch them, and by the time they stopped across the road from the emporium, about twenty minutes later, the big ape was too out of breath to do anything more than shake them feebly by their coats.
“I’ll get you...both for that...next time, when you’re...least expect—”
“Shut it, Fat Man.” At not even five feet tall, John was suddenly the biggest of them, in his rare daredevil groove. “Go wheeze on your own somewhere. We can’t sneak in anywhere with a bloody lunger walrus hanging on.”
Saul raised a finger, opened his mouth to answer, but his boiler was empty. He bent to recover, his hands resting on his knees.
“Where do we get in, Eddie?” John asked.
“There’s a gap in the fence, between the third and fourth trees. We can reach the ladder on the corner of the building. Up there, just below the slope of the roof, Brandy and I found a loose panel. You have to bend it but it’s easy to squeeze through. That brings you onto one of the highest platforms inside—then you make your way down, one platform at a time. Easy-peasy, Pekinesey. You ready, Fat Man?”
“Yeah, but it’d better be easy...to fit through. If I get stuck, I’ll kill you, Rear-End.”
“If you get stuck, you’ll freeze to death. And me and John’ll come and stick a carrot in your foul mush.”
“A pipe, too,” John said. He nudged Edmond. “Do you smoke it?”
“Funny little buggers, aren’t you?” Saul barged them aside and stopped at the gap in the tall, iron fence, a gap too narrow for a grown man. The sun perched on the smoky rooftops across the Thames, its pinks and reds bleeding into the grim sky beneath dark clouds. There would probably be more snowfall tonight. After checking to make sure no one else was watching, Saul squeezed through the gap and ploughed through deep snow under the line of bare ash trees.
John went next. Edmond could see the gap in the roof from ground level. He noted the flickering amber glow, and how quiet the emporium seemed—indeed, how quiet London was for a late afternoon on Christmas Eve. A convoy of airships circled far, far above. He glanced behind him to the main street. Where were the rickety cars hissing steam, the clack-clack of horses’ hooves and carriage wheels on the icy cobblestone?
He swallowed nervously as John and Saul beckoned him. If anyone happened by, it wouldn’t take Quatermain to follow these tracks in the snow. But it would be dark soon and Edmond had no cause to worry. He patted his father’s dynamo lamp in his pocket. A custom design.
A light that—he hoped—would never go out.