Free The Curious Case Of The Clockwork Man by Mark Hodder Page A

different from what would otherwise have been. People are being exposed to opportunities and challenges they perhaps should not experience, and it is changing them entirely. Future mechanisms, hinted at in conversations between Edward Oxford’s companion, Henry Beresford, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, are being developed according to current knowledge, giving us a glut of contraptions that, in all probability, should never have existed at all. Yet, amid all this chaos and confusion, there is one thing we can be certain of: changing time cannot possibly alter natural laws. I don’t know whether spiritualist powers belong to the science of physics or to the science of biology; I know only that they are real. You are the living evidence.”
    Countess Sabina’s eyes met his, and in them he saw utter conviction as she said: “And yet, in the world that should have been, they are not real.
They are not real.
Somehow, Captain Burton, I feel this is the key!”
    “The key to what?”
    “To—to the survival of the British Empire!”
----
    Later that same day, Burton was standing by one of his study windows smoking a Manila cheroot, filling the room with its pungent scent and staring sightlessly at the street below, when a messenger parakeet landed on the sill. Raising the window, he received: “Message from that dung-squeezer, Detective Inspector Trounce. Message begins. Word has reached me that you’re back on your feet, you dirty shunt-knobbler. I’ll call round at eight this evening. Message ends.”
    Burton chuckled. Dirty shunt-knobbler. He must tell Algy that one.
    He did, later, when Swinburne visited, and the poet roared with laughter, which was cut short when Fidget, Burton’s basset hound, bit his ankle.
    “Yow! Damn and blast the confounded dog! Why does he always do that?” he screeched.
    “It’s just his way of showing affection.”
    “Can’t you train him to be a little less expressive?”
    They sat and chatted, relaxing in each other’s company, enjoying their easy though unlikely friendship. Perhaps no stranger pair could be found in the whole of London than the brutal-faced, hard-bitten explorer and the delicate, rather effeminate-looking poet. Yet there was an intellectual—and perhaps spiritual—bond between them, which had begun with a shared love for the work of the Portuguese poet Camoens; had been sustained by a mutual need to know where their own limits lay—if, indeed, they had any; and was now strengthened by the challenges and dangers they faced together in the service of the king.
    On the dot of eight, there came a hammering at the front door, followed by footsteps on the stairs and a tapping at the study door.
    “Come!” Burton called.
    The portal swung open and Mrs. Angell crossed the threshold. She stood nervously wrapping her hands in her pinafore.
    “Detective Inspector T-Trounce and a young con-constable to see you, sir,” she stammered. “And—and—goodness gracious me!”
    “Mrs. Angell? Are you quite all right?”
    Trounce stepped into the room behind her. Constable Bhatti followed.
    “Hallo, Captain! Hallo, Swinburne!” the Scotland Yard man cried cheerfully. “Mrs. Angell, my dear woman, don’t worry yourself! I promise you, it’s absolutely harmless!”
    “B-but—bless my soul!” the old dame stuttered. She threw up her hands and bustled out of the room.
    “What’s harmless?” Burton asked.
    “You look like your old self again!” Trounce exclaimed, ignoring the question. “But never mind! Worse things happen at sea!”
    Swinburne gave a screech of laughter.
    “Come in, gentlemen; help yourself to a drink and cigar,” Burton invited, indicating the decanter and the cigar box.
    They did so, pulled over a couple of armchairs, and settled around the fireplace with the king’s agent and the poet. Fidget sprawled on the hearthrug at their feet.
    “We have a gift for you, Captain,” Trounce declared with a mischievous twinkle.
    “Really? Why?”
    “Oh,