Infernal Devices

6

The robed sages of Arabia Felix have written: "There are two things without limit – the stupidity of Man and the mercy of God." (I have had time for religious studies since my retreat from the world's affairs.) I have not yet had proof of the latter, but the former was borne out by the fulfilment of my own lamentable desires.

I had wished for Excitement, and an end to Boredom; these had been given me, and in abundant measure. But as I regained consciousness, my disordered thoughts reassembling inside my throbbing skull, I would have cried out for the return of every drab and predictable second of my previous existence, so foolishly despised and irrevocably lost. I would have cried thus, but for the rag wadded in my mouth, stoppering all speech.

The precise nature of my confinement gradually became clear to me. The back of my head – seemingly intact, though I would have otherwise supposed that the blow to it had left fragments on the floor of Fexton's room jostled against the planks of a small cart, sparking a fresh throb of pain with each cobblestone under the creaking wheels. My hands were trussed behind me; against each shoulder another body was pressed tight – the cold forms of Fexton and the Brown Leather Man, I guessed them to be. A rough cover of sacking had been thrown across the faces of the living and the dead, to shield us from the inquiring eyes of any who might look out their windows upon us as we made our progress through the night-clad city. A few times I heard the abducting ruffians murmur to each other from their perch behind the reins.

A softer murmur of lapping water, and a change in the air filtering through the stiff cloth over my face, signalled our approach to the riverside. The cart came to a halt, shifting slightly when the two men clambered down. From the hollow strike of their boots I surmised that we were on a wharf somewhere in the city's docklands.

I was fully conscious by this point, my thoughts scurrying to find some exit from my predicament. Whatever curiosity I had once had concerning the affairs of either of the deceased who shared the cart-bed with me, was now extinguished entire. Though I had, through my amateur investigations, discovered less than nothing, with a net result of more mystification than that which I had commenced, I was now perfectly willing to accept continuing ignorance of these matters' explanations as my lot. Surely these men had no malice against me specifically; I was but an inconvenient witness to their unsavoury transactions. I desperately attempted to indicate my willingness to blank my mind of what I had seen, allowing them to go about their business with no fear of scrutiny from myself or any of the constabulary I might have otherwise alerted, but my assuring words were stifled by the wadded rag.

"Here, you," said one of them, prodding me through the sacking. "Stop gargling about like that."

I did not heed this admonishment, instead redoubling my thrashing efforts at communication. The ensuing noises earned me a clout on the head that left me dazed and silent, but still cognizant of events around me.

"Where is he, then?" muttered one of the men.

"Hang on – here he comes." A third set of footsteps sounded faint against the far end of the wharf's timbers, growing louder as they strode closer.

A servile anxiety had sounded in my captors' twin voices. This gave rise to the hope that the awaited figure now approaching was their master, or in some other relationship of authority over them. Doubtless, if I could present my case to him, he would correct his underlings' mistake and have me set free, not wishing to compound whatever iniquities had been involved in the deaths of Fexton and the Brown Leather Man. The vow of a gentleman to keep a discreet silence would surely be bond enough to warrant my safe passage out of their keeping.

The new footsteps stopped at the side of the cart. All three men drew a small distance away, their hushed tones mingling in a hurried conference. I strained at the cords around my wrists, anxious to be free again and away from the grisly freight on either side of me.

The murmuring voices lapsed into silence; I could hear the trio returning to the cart; the obscuring sackcloth was snatched away from my face. Past the glare of a lantern held above by one of the ruffians, I could barely discern the aspect of the gang's captain. Taller and more slender than his squat and heavy-muscled minions, cloaked and top-hatted as if freshly arrived from opera or ballroom; all but his eyes were hidden behind a silk scarf that he raised with a gloved hand to prevent any possible recognition.

I returned the man's inspecting gaze, my muffled voice striving to impart to him that I had information of an urgent nature to communicate, when he drew back from the lantern's circle of light. "Yes." I heard his voice in the darkness, the one word sufficient to indicate the speaker's high degree of cultivation. "Take him out with the others," he instructed the two ruffians.

A moment passed before I realised that I was to share whatever disposition had been decided upon for the two cadavers nestled with me in the cart. I shouted, producing only a gagging cough through the rag in my mouth, and banged my heels against the wood, but to no avail: the gentleman who had so offhandedly sealed my fate could be heard striding away down the wharf. I was roughly seized and slung between the two others' hands as though I were a hundredweight of potatoes, then just as roughly deposited in the damp bottom of a small boat bobbing alongside the dock pilings. My breath was knocked from my lungs by the inert forms of the two corpses landing one after another on top of me.

The boat tilted as the two men clambered down into it. Over the top of Fexton's skull, the strands of his lank, greasy hair plastered tendril-like against my own face, I could see the edge of the wharf sliding away to reveal the stars overhead, as the self-appointed Charon used an oar to push away from the pilings.

"Leave off your be-damned snuffling and croaking." The other ruffian gave me a kick from where he sat at the prow of the tiny craft. "Save your breath; you'll be swimming soon enough." The slap of the oars against the dark water provided a dismal counterpoint to his ill-tempered growl, as his companion rowed farther into a deserted stretch of the Thames.

"This'll do," came the pronouncement. "Likely no deeper than hereabouts."

"Shouldn't we have weighted them?" The second brought the oars inside. "They'll come up again, now won't they?"

A grisly consideration: "The tide's running. If they come bobbing up, it'll be miles downriver."

As I view my hobbled actions with the grace of hindsight, I realise now I would have been better occupied with prayer and silent contemplation of eternity than with attempting to mouth words past the cloth in my mouth. I entreated the men; offered fabulous sums for my release; threatened them with legions of the constabulary – the rag reduced all to a choking mumble.

The deadweight on my chest was more than halved, as the men lifted Brown Leather's corpse from on top – "Come along, you great ugly bastard," said one, between grunts of effort – and, swinging it by the feet and under the arms, threw it clear of the tottering boat. The impact of the body on the water threw a spray across my own face.

"And you now-" The ruffians were in a quite jocular mood as they picked up Fexton's lighter weight. "Faugh! Couldn't be bothered with a bath when you was alive, from the smell of you – well, you'll have a long one, if a cold one, now, me boy. Count of three, now – one – two in you go!" Another splash followed the first.

"Mubble, mubble, mubble," mocked one of the men, as he brought his grinning face close to mine. "Wordy sod, aren't you just?"

"He can tell it all to his mates," joined the other, indicating the river's dark water with a thumb over his shoulder.

"Now, let's not be hasty." The two of them crouched at my head and feet, the first tapping my forehead with one broad finger. "Seems a very likeable sort of fellow – very likeable, indeed."

"Here, what are you on about?" Lifting my head, I could just see the other's scowl.

"Well, I just thinks a likeable sort of gentleman such as this 'un – prosperous, too, from the looks of that watch we took off him – seems a shame to just pitch him into the drink without so much as giving him a chance to express a proper sort of gratitude to us, if you know what I'm getting at."

I nodded my head vigorously, striking the still-aching back of my head against the boat's bottom, and attempted to signal with my eyes that I was in complete accord with these sentiments.

"Bugger that." The hinted proposition was rudely greeted. "Worth our flaming heads, it is – he said pitch this one in, too, so in he goes, I says."

No! I shouted – or tried to. Listen to your friend!

"Keep your braces on. I was just toying with the poor devil. See how big his eyes are! – he thought I wanted to let him go."

"Leave off – bleeding cold it is out here."

My tormentor grasped me under the arms. "Right enough. Sorry, me fine gent – it's us for the gin-shop, but we won't be seeing you there."

I felt myself raised up between them into the air, with the first swing to impart the distance necessary for clearing the side of the boat. My brain seemed to rock in identical motion inside its confines as the pin-point stars above streaked, held, then reversed their direction.

Water erupted around me, yet I oddly felt myself rising a bit higher in the chill air. I realised that the two ruffians, shouting in terror and releasing their grip on my limbs, were falling with me as the boat lifted on a sudden upwelling from beneath, tipping all of its occupants out into the river.

I struck the water, parting the thin layer of mist cloaking it, and felt the chill darkness flood upward over my face. The cloth was fortuitously dislodged from my mouth; gasping for breath, I bobbed to the surface, still bound at wrist and ankle. In the thin, spectral light I saw the overturned boat, its keel now a shattered, gaping hole.

A few feet away from me, the river murk was lashed into foam by the struggling figures of the two ruffians. Their faces were contorted with fright as a third form, a man, rose behind them. Gripping each one's shoulder, disdainful of the flailing arms, the dark shape thrust them churning under the dark water, as though they were but two stanchions by which he could thrust himself bodily clear of the river.

A moment's glimpse was all that was afforded to me. In the panic and shock that the sudden immersion had induced in me, I thought I saw the face of the Brown Leather Man, grimly terrible as the stars glinted off the wet-shining visage. his scarred grimace rigid as he drowned his murderers.

I slid under the water again. My breath burned in my lungs – briefly; then the water became yet darker, and, just before my consciousness dissolved entire, the cold drained away my own blood..

Slowly, as a dreamer recognizes the contours of his pillow, I became aware that my face was pressed against a gravelly muck. At first, I believed this to be the river bottom, and that I had come to rest upon it; my thoughts were but a last flicker before the final extinguishing, or else the beginning of that new, incorporeal nature promised to us in the teachings of the Church. I would, I hoped dimly, be shortly ascending to a higher abode.

My theological musings were interrupted by a gagging fit that disgorged a considerable amount of river water on to the damp field on which I lay. Lifting my head, I found myself shivering in the chill night air, my sodden clothes clinging about my frame; I took this to mean I was not yet dead. By some means I had been restored from what had been meant to be my watery grave, to a place of comparative safety.

Safety, if not comfort: the taste of the water was foul in my mouth; and I felt distinctly nauseated from whatever amount I had swallowed while immersed in it. Drenched to the marrow, and in the teeth of the wind that scudded the dark clouds overhead, I would soon have my trembling limbs palsied with a severe ague if I did not find some warmth soon. I pushed myself upright, and realised that my wrists were no longer bound together. My ankles were likewise free; feeling the cords dangling from me, I found them snapped in twain, rather than unknotted or cut. I quickly disentangled the pieces from me and tossed them away. I heard the bits of cord splash into water; kneeling on the wet muck, I saw now that it sloped down to the river's edge. My eyes had become adjusted to the dark, simultaneously with the sorting out of my disordered thoughts; I looked about to assess my situation.

I appeared to be quite alone; neither my captors, nor the silent forms of my fellow victims, had washed up on this strand with me. (The matter of the Brown Leather Man's murdered status was without doubt, as I had seen the stiffening corpse myself in Fexton's rooms; the apparition that had accompanied the overturning of the ruffians' boat I ascribed to the temporary collapse of my reason, my senses having been overwhelmed by the fearsome circumstances I had endured.) Dark forms, the straight edges and squared corners of unlit buildings, overlapped their silhouettes against the night sky, some distance from my dismal station. These were the warehouses, chandlers' offices, and other such furnishings to the river trade; various ships could be discerned, moored to the wharves and extending from the banks. All were seemly uninhabited at this late hour, the sailors and docksmen given over to sleep or carouse at the appointed establishments farther into the city. Whatever notion I entertained of calling out to these sources of aid and shelter was quickly dispelled by another consideration: the raising of my voice might also signal my location to either or both of the two ruffians, the tide having possibly drifted them ashore some distance beyond my immediate perception.

My solitary condition, I soon realised, applied only to the absence of other human beings. I felt the hem of my sodden coat tugged at by a smaller creature, then, when its sharp teeth let go, heard its sharp yapping. A dog, and specifically, Fexton's shabby terrier; I recognised its skipping gait as it circled excitedly around me, barking its delight at my resurrection. How had it come to this spot? The simplest explanation being that it had followed the cart bearing its dead master, faithful as the canine race is to undeserving humanity, and had undertaken a vigil at the edges of the waters where that personage had finally disappeared. It now seemed as if the dog's affections had been transferred to me; perhaps its small mind remembered my intervention against Fexton's cruelty.

The appearance of the dog suggested a remedy to my situation. I had, back in the borough of Wetwick, noted the seeming twins of this creature, busily engaged in leading the denizens of that area on some common errand – just such high pitched yapping and darting about had guided the remarkable-looking figures. Perhaps Fexton's dog was eager to return me to some place in that district? Now and again, it nipped my clothing and tugged, as if attempting to pull me to my feet. If that were so, then from Wetwick I could find my own way home. My own little shop and bed upstairs were the only images of safety and rest that my fatigue-addled brain could conjure.

"Very well," I spoke aloud; the dog barked in reply. "See – I'm standing up." I tottered on the muck's slippery footing. "Lead on, then." The dog pranced away a few feet, then back to make sure that I was following. Thus, with weary and confused steps, I made my way up from the edge of the river, in the depths of which I had so shortly before been immersed.

The dog led me to a flight of stone steps set into the embankment wall. Grasping the iron mooring rings, I pulled myself along; at the top, I was gratified to find good solid cobblestones under my feet once again. On either side warehouses reached upward to form a narrow corridor; these were obviously abandoned, the gaps in their doorways' planks revealing empty, cobwebbed space beyond and roofs sagging open to all weather. I stumbled after my barking guide.

A murmur of voices, faint in the distance, quickened my steps. The dog pulled me around the corner of the last of the warehouses, and I saw, faintly outlined by the dim light spilling from its windows, the unmistakable form of a small church. Of classical, Wren-like proportions, with a thin spire cutting a wedge from the night's darker background; no more welcome refuge could have arisen out of the gloom. A troubling fragment of memory, as though the edifice embodied some painful recognition, passed through my thoughts, but I was too close to exhaustion to puzzle over the matter. With the dog dancing before and after my heels, I hastened towards it.

As I came closer, I saw a carriage positioned close to the church, a figure in priestly vestments beside the vehicle; I could not see his face, that being obscured by the shadow cast by the pillars of the church's portico. Here at last was succour and refuge from my assailants. Murmuring a prayer of thanks, as a combination of relief and fatigue drained the last of my strength, I stumbled the last few yards along an overgrown pathway, and collapsed into the priest's arms.

"Jesus H. Christ," I heard an oddly familiar voice say. "What the hell are you doing here?"

I opened my eyes and found myself looking up into the blue-glass spectacles of the confidence man and would-be burglar Scape.

My old nemesis… Laying down my pen upon the desk, and massaging my brow creased with the effort of composition, I see yet that sharp-pointed visage. As, once during my rural childhood, having witnessed a ferret taking a barn rat I had been transfixed by the creature's image of low cunning, ferocious greed, and self-congratulating conceit; so I remember the man, less as Man, and more as Nature – unreasoning vivacity, no more doubting himself than does the lightning stroke that splits the tree and sparks the field into flame.

And what if Scape's self-proclaimed knowledge of the Future is correct, and some day all men will be such as he is? (And do we not see that transformation already commenced?) Men with duty but to Self, and with erratic Ambition fuelled by the combustion of their own Intelligence – they will be fearsome creatures indeed.

That day is, I fervently hope, yet a ways distant. I sit in my small, safe harbour, and unfold again a snippet extracted from an Edinburgh journal and sent to my attention by a friendly correspondent. The piece contains information from far-off communities in the Scottish Highlands; a man with blue spectacles, disfigured by both limp and burn scars (fellow veteran! – we all bear our scars, inside or out), has passed amongst them, leaving a turbulent wake…

We were startled equally. Outside the little church to which Fexton's terrier had led me, my legs failed me, and I would have dropped into the puddle of riverwater that had collected around my feet, if Scape had not grasped me under the arm and held me upright. The tone of his words made the incongruity with his clerical garb complete: "Shit – did Bendray send you here? He must have. That sonuvabitch; never tells me a goddamn thing…" The face surmounting the white collar flushed with a barely suppressed anger.

I did nothing to correct whatever supposition he cared to make concerning my presence. My travails had left me too short of breath, and scattered of thought, to summon words of explanation. Beyond this, I had no way of knowing whether Scape, already known to be guilty of the assault on my assistant Creff and the attempted burglary of my shop, might not also be in league with the murderous ruffians who had deposited me in the river. If some confusion amongst them gave me temporary safety (was this Bendray some chief over the conspirators?), I was willing to let the situation stand uncorrected. Soon enough, when my strength had returned and Scape's attention was diverted, I could make my escape unnoticed.

"Christ, look at ya." He drew back to examine me. "You're sopping wet; been swimming or something?"

"I- that is-"

"Forget it, man." Scape's hurried interruption rendered the fabrication of an excuse unnecessary. "Don't have time for it now. Things are gonna be cracking around here pretty soon." He tugged me towards the church door. "Come on, we can find you some dry stuff inside." The dog trotted along behind us, until Scape spotted it. "Shoo – get outta here." He stamped his foot; the dog, with great reluctance, slunk back outside. "Goddamn bell-dogs." I had no idea what he meant.

Another figure in priest's garments turned towards us as we approached down the nave. To my further astonishment, I recognised the person as Scape's companion, Miss McThane. She had pulled and pinned her hair back for the masquerade, but had neglected to scrub off her face paints, thus producing a rather brazen and disturbing appearance. Her eyes widened when she saw me. "Where'd he come from?"

"Can it, will ya?" Scape, still gripping my arm, propelled me faster. "Bendray's filled him in on the whole deal." His agile mind, ever impatient with mere fact, had embroidered the erroneous assumption into a complete picture. "He sent you here to help us out on this thing, right?" He glanced at me for confirmation.

"I-"

"Right." He thrust me forward. "Come on, we gotta get going; those funny-looking fuckers'll be here any minute now. There's some more of these highbutton nightgowns in the what-d'ya-call-it – yeah, the vestry – get him decked out, will ya? I'll get the rest of the stuff." He turned and strode quickly down the nave.

Smiling, Miss McThane folded her arm into mine. "Sure thing," she said. "Jeez, you're all wet. Don't worry; I'll take care of you."

I was still too weak to resist as she guided me towards a side door beyond the altar. Within moments I found myself in a dimly lit room, the air thick with that peculiar mustiness that comes with spaces too long shuttered. Miss McThane closed the door and leaned back against it, surveying my forlornly dripping figure before her.

"Here." She took a long priest's robe from a wall hook, raising a cloud of grey dust from the fabric, and draped it over the back of a sagging chair. Stepping close to me, she deftly undid the buttons of my waistcoat, then those of the sodden shirt underneath. My breath caught in my throat as she laid her pale hand upon the bare skin of my chest. "You're just about frozen," she whispered. I remembered the smile she gave me from the incident in my shop. "We better get you thawed out…"

I backed away, toppling a candle-stand and a stack of mouldy breviaries behind me. "That's… that's not necessary," I said feebly. "I assure you – I can manage quite nicely, thank you-"

My avenues of escape – were blocked by the debris cluttering the small room. Miss McThane, advancing dauntless, soon had me cornered between a small pump-organ and an upended pew bench. The eyes of my pursuer glittered with a disturbing avidity; the organ gave a despairing wheeze as I leaned back, my hand braced against its yellowed keyboard. Her voice was a lewd pianissimo counterpoint: "Come on, you sonuvabitch…"

What! I had thought was a curtained wall behind me parted, allowing me to fall back on to the floor of a small alcove. Above me, when I looked up, was a face that trembled my heart even more than had that of Miss McThane: the smooth, porcelain and wax visage of a clockwork choirboy, one blue eye staring open at me, the other sealed by a rusty spring as though· winking at my undignified circumstances.

Miss McThane loomed over her prey, but I was scarcely aware of her. With rapidly mounting horror, I realised where I was and why the small church had seemed so oddly familiar to me. Though I had been here only once before, the terror engendered on that occasion had impressed the building's aspect permanently on my memory. I had been led from the river straight to the portals of Saint Mary Alderhythe, the site of the disastrous, even blasphemous resurrection of Dower's Patented Clerical Automata. That which I had taken to be a curtain was in fact the robe of the chorister whose mock-cherubic face now leered at me; rising up on my elbow and twisting about, I could see a whole row of the mechanical creatures, lined up in the alcove like soldiers on parade; beneath me was the brass track set into the church's floor to guide the singing mannikins on their appointed circuit through the church; A mocking fate had led me to the precincts where my meddling ignorance had unleashed those scenes of clattering, spring-driven chaos. Not just painful to my recollection, but the source of angry loathing from such as the crippled pastor (his injury the direct result of that dread evening) who had chased me from his desk only a day previously.

"Good God." I gazed up, stricken. "All I feared has come upon me."

"For Christ's sake," Miss McThane knelt down and grasped my shirt in her small fists. "It's not gonna be that bad. Sheesh-"

At that moment, the the vestry's door flew open; the church's light fell across us. "Not now;" said Scape, seeing us. "Goddamn it; you can do that later. We gotta get this friggin' church ready." He dumped on the floor an awkwardly shaped bag, which immediately split, spewing its contents. "Come on," he ordered as he strode back out the door.

Miss McThane stood up, tucking a few disordered strands of her auburn hair behind her ears. "Next time," she assured me, straightening out her vestments. She picked up the other garments and tossed them to me.

When she had gone to join her larcenous companion, I quickly completed the undressing she had commenced and scrambled into the musty-smelling robes – the damp and chill of my own clothes had seeped into my bones. Any escape from this ill-favoured place would be as easily accomplished rigged out as a peripatetic priest, as it would be for a dripping, sneezing near-corpse traversing the night streets.

For escape was now even more firmly centred in my mind. As I fastened a dust-grey reversed collar about my neck, I took stock of my predicament. That Scape was using the church of Saint Mary Alderhythe for some criminal purpose – if not technically sacrilegious, the building having been hastily de-consecrated after my own ignominious experiences there – of this I had no doubt. (I had already perceived, at this early stage of acquaintanceship, that none of Scape's activities were free of illicit intent.) They were "getting the church ready" – for whom? What ritual was planned? It did not seem to have anything to do with the Clerical Automata my father had built and installed here; I investigated further into the room's various niches, and found all the figures, some with cobwebs filling the angles of their mechanical limbs, undisturbed since the aftermath of my own botched attentions upon them.

I stumbled across the bag Scape had deposited in the middle of the floor. Bending down, I saw that the spilled contents were books, the bindings tattered with use: they were the church's breviaries and hymnals gathered up as though by a purloining bibliophile and cached here. I began to wonder if Scape's actions were perhaps governed more by insanity than dishonesty.

As I peered round the vestry door, hoping to see a clear path to the front of the church and the freedom of the darkness beyond, I was instead spotted by Scape, as he hurriedly lugged another bag down the nave. He signalled me over to him.

"You look sharp, man; really." He pulled the bag up against the hem of my vestment. "Start putting these out, okay?"

"Pardon?" I said. I wished him to go on believing that I had somehow been recruited into this conspiracy by another the better to lull any suspicions and thus make an unhindered exit when the opportunity came – but his rapid speech skittered past before I could comprehend it.

"The pews, man-" He shouted over his shoulder, already bolting towards the church door. "Stick 'em in the pews!"

I opened the bag and found more books inside. But not of a religious nature; instead, in such varying editions and states of wear as to indicate they had been salvaged from every penny bookstall in London, copies of Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler. For a moment, I did not doubt Scape's sanity as much as my own. The dream-like nature of my adventures again impressed itself upon me; events had gone from puzzling to ludicrous, as they are wont to do when our sleeping visions course to a confusing end, all resemblance to waking nature abandoned. Surely I was about to raise my head from my pillow, blinking at the morning light, eventually (and with relief) to find no evidence of strange visitors and disastrous excursions? My thin breakfast and placid life restored to me? The notion gave comfort.

I glanced up from the dog-eared volume in my hand. From the corner of my eye I had seen where Miss McThane was arranging something upon the altar. The mock priest smiled and raised a hand signal consisting of her thumb and forefinger brought together in an O, the meaning of which eluded me. I turned away and, as instructed by Scape, began distributing the Anglers, dragging the bag between the pews and placing a copy of the Walton tome in each wooden rack or, when such were missing, on the seat itself.

This task had scarcely been completed when I heard the approaching clatter of another carriage outside the church. With the empty bag wadded in one hand, I made my way back through the pews to the nave, where I encountered a gesticulating Scape in company with another man. The latter was a gentleman considerably greyed and thinned by age, his wraith-like figure distinguished by the elegant, if somewhat antique, cut of his suit, and by the haughty bearing exhibited in his step and the angle of his head. He gave me a cursory glance as he passed by, like a lord of the manor reviewing his household staff, while absently listening to Scape's voluble description of the preparations that had been made.

"There, that's done," spoke Miss McThane at my elbow. "Hope this old bastard likes it." I looked round to where she had been busily engaged while I was setting out the books, and saw that the altar, in the manner of those rural churches that display notable examples of the parishioner's crops at harvest time, was here festooned with fishing tackle. Rods and creels, lines and barbed hooks, all formed a decorative arrangement in place of the expected cross and chalice. Dream upon dream; I felt quite giddy to see that more of the impedimenta of angling had also been strewn about the church, beneath every window and entwined about the rail.

No sooner had I perceived this bizarre transformation of the little church, than a murmur of voices came from outside. "Come on!" shouted Scape, sprinting down the nave. He grabbed my arm and Miss McThane's, and hustled us towards the vestry. "They're here – Bendray thinks it'll make a better effect if they don't see us yet."

We were soon installed in the vestry's darkness, with Scape peering out through the crack of the door. Standing behind him, I could see over his head where the elderly gentleman – the mysterious Bendray, I presumed – was waiting at the church's entrance. Miss McThane, exhibiting every sign of boredom, had placed herself upon the bench of the pumporgan, and was examining the condition of her fingernails. "Here they come," whispered Scape at last. "Christ, they're an ugly-looking bunch – give me the flippin' creeps."

I saw them then, peering apprehensively around the open church doors. The elderly gentleman raised his arms wide in a gesture of benevolent welcome. Slowly with anxious glances around the building's interior, the odd looking residents of that district to which I had been delivered at the start of this nightmare filed in, caps in hand. The people of Wetwick had arrived.

"Just look at those bug-eyed suckers." Scape shook his head as he peered through the narrow aperture. "Whoops – now they're getting excited, all right."

From my position, leaning over his bowed back, I could see Bendray turn grandly about, his arms spreading wider, his gesture obviously inviting the goggling crowd to inspect the church's premises. Indeed, some of the Wetwick residents had already filtered through the pews, and had excitedly picked up copies of The Compleat Angler from the hymnal racks. Their extraordinary eyes grew even larger as the books were excitedly handed around. Others, with strangely accented cries, had discovered the fishing tackle draped at various points; their jabbering grew louder as the barbed hooks were brandished before each face. Soon the church was filled with their voices as a group of them ran down the nave towards the tacklestrewn altar.

Scape pulled the door shut. "Old Bendray's not gonna need us for a while," he said, straightening up. "Looks like he's getting his point across." I greatly desired to ask what that point was, but refrained. The conspirators' proximity dictated that I continue my charade. I maintained a discreet silence as Scape paced about the vestry's confined area, rubbing the small of his back.

"Goddamn books were heavy," he muttered. "Plus all that other crap – should hit on the old goat for a hazardous-duty bonus." He gestured towards Miss McThane and myself. "Take five, guys – I think we're in here until the fish-eye brigade out there gets their fill."

Miss McThane glanced up at me, smiled before turning to silently regard her companion, then went back to the of her manicure. I backed as far away as I could in the cluttered room.

"Hey, what's this stuff?"

I looked round and saw that Scape had discovered the alcove behind the pump-organ. As I watched, he drew one of the clockwork choristers out along the brass track laid into the floor.

"No!" I shouted involuntarily. "Don't – that is… I don't think you should tamper with that."

He disregarded my warning, bending down to examine the device. "This is some of your old man's stuff, isn't it?" He looked up at me, then back to the choirboy mannikin. "Far out."

"It's – it's very delicate." I stepped across and laid my hand on his arm. "Extremely so. I think it would be best if you refrained-"

"Screw that." He shook me off, then knelt down for a closer look. His hands had already found the small panel at the back and had pried it open. "I've been itching to get a hold of one of these."

"Please… I beg of you." Dreadful memories urged my anxiety. "Desist-"

"Forget it," said Miss McThane to me. "There's no stopping him when he's got a new toy." She gazed with an expression of disgust as Scape explored further into the choristers' alcove.

"All right." His voice came muffled from the depths, beyond the row of mannikins. A flaring safety match threw his shadow back towards me. "I think I found the master controls."

So he had; I recognised the assemblage of levers and gears from the last time. No doubt the apparatus was still in the state of erroneous adjustment in which I had left it; I could see that the great coil of the central driving spring was still wound tight.

I left off wringing my hands and grasped the back of Scape's vestments to pull him away from the machinery. "You mustn't," I cried. "The devices are misaligned and malfunctioning-"

He shook me off with considerable violence, sending me sprawling upon the floor. His brow furrowed in anger above the blue lenses. "I've been studying your old man's gizmos for years," he said sharply. "There ain't anything I don't know about them."

I made another attempt to ward off tragedy, grasping him about his robed knees. He toppled backwards and, flailing about for balance, grabbed hold of the centremost lever. "Watch out!"

Scraping through a layer of rust, the lever swung in an arc under Scape's weight. For a moment there was silence, then a soft, unmistakable tick. Our combat ceased, with Scape supine on the alcove's floor and I halfway above him; we both arched our necks to see the machinery beyond us.

Another tick, and a groan of metal shifting from its long-confined position. The noises began to rattle and clatter faster, as the escapements and ratchets of the apparatus woke into their spurious life.

"Christ Almighty-" I scrambled across my opponent's form and yanked the lever. It resisted all my efforts; I might as well have been tugging at the balustraded stones of the church in a Samson-like attempt to bring the entire edifice down upon our heads. The row of mechanical choristers shifted, the jointed limbs beneath the robes creaking, the porcelain faces swivelling above the ruffled collars. In the manner of an owl, the head of the lead chorister swung all the way round, its glass eyes beatifically regarding us. The rosined wheels that my father had installed in the device's throat engaged; " Glo – ri – a," it sang in a piercing treble.

Scape got to his feet and joined me in tugging at the lever. "We gotta get this thing shut off before those creeps out in the church hear it." Our efforts were to no avail as the lever remained in its position.

A creaking noise sounded from the other alcoves around the perimeter of the vestry, as the remainder of my father's devices stirred into life from their rusting sleep. Looking behind me, I saw a white-haired priest emerge into the room's open space; the figure was entirely lifelike except for the maniacally rolling glass eyes and the hand repeating its blessing over the pump-organ. "And with thy spirit," it pronounced, or rather, the wheels inside its throat did.

"Nice going," said Miss McThane. Her sarcasm was cut short as she was forced to duck away from the benediction of the clockwork priest, now spinning about rapidly enough to lift the hem of its vestment as though it were a dervish. Light flooded into the room as the door, also connected to the machinery, flew open. A number of the Wetwick residents gaped at this sudden apparition revealed to them. The choristers rocked back and forth along the metal track, and then began filing towards the onlookers; an off-tune Latin chant sounded from the porcelain throats.

"Stop those little shits." Scape pushed past me and grabbed the robe of the last chorister in the procession. The rotten fabric tore away, showing the clicking armatures and spinning gears of the device as it marched on. He grasped one brass strut, but succeeded only in dislodging the cherub head askew so that it hung sideways and groaned in basso profundo. The priest ceased its gyrations and followed after the choir.

The Wetwick residents were now entirely alerted by the noise and commotion. They ceased their roundeyed goggling at the copies of The Compleat Angler and watched in amazement the erratic progress of the automata into the church; the machinery, having fallen into such a state of decay, now jerked about with appalling violence. The actions of the choristers were further deranged by the fact that Scape's billowing vestments had become entangled in the exposed workings of the one figure with which he had attempted to interfere; flailing about, his face reddening with his shouted curses, he was being dragged on his back behind the choir as they made their way. The terrified onlookers scrambled away, trampling each other in their haste to avoid this apparition. Miss McThane, her long hair in wild disarray, tugged at her companion in a futile attempt at rescue.

From a position of relative safety at the vestry door, I watched as Bendray, with raised hands and quavering voice, first tried to restore order to the panic-stricken assemblage. He soon abandoned the effort and, wisely fearing for his own skin, slipped out the church door, moments before the great mass of the Wetwick residents jammed the egress, tearing at one another's backs and limbs in desperate flight, the crazed energy of their numbers resulting in virtually none of them winning through to the darkness outside.

Inside the stone walls, echoing with cries of terror and grating mechanical noises, the carnage had become even more nightmarish than on that long past occasion when I had first attempted to put my father's devices into their appointed motions. With the furiously struggling Scape in tow, the choir had reached their positions, but had split into various factions, as if arguing amongst themselves on the proper course of their further ritual. One group of the mannikins seemed bent on another procession, and to that end had turned about, battering against the others as the deranged machinery drove them along the metal rails. Scape's imprecations mingled with the cacophony of hymns sung simultaneously, the artificial voices shrilling ever higher as the rosined wheels wore down to the bare metal beneath. Two of the porcelain heads butted together as though in the combat of rams, cracking and spraying throughout the church bits of the smiling cherub faces and the springs and gears beneath. The headless choristers went on battering into each other's robed chests as one of the church windows dissolved into glittering fragments from the impact of one such missile.

Simultaneously, the priest, in carrying out the cycle of duties that my father had built into its workings, had become entangled in the fishing gear that had been draped across the altar. Dragging the lines and barbed hooks along, it seized upon one poor creature who had been frozen in his steps from sheer fright. The ugly Wetwick face was even more contorted as the mechanical priest dragged him to the baptismal font and immersed him therein. A great surge of water splashed upward from the struggling man's arms and into the gently smiling countenance of the clockwork priest, as it recited an appeal for donations to the bell rehanging fund.

These sights assured the Wetwick residents that they had been lured into the church as the objects of may hem. They redoubled their efforts at forcing their way past their fellows, and out the door. Their gargling cries grew louder as well, as though they were already being murdered en masse.

No one's attention was directed towards me. The wisdom of leaving such a site was even more apparent now. I sidled past the empty pews to the window shattered by the fragment of porcelain cherub's-head. The voluminous folds of my clerical costume protected my hands as I scrambled up on to the thick stone sill and vaulted out, landing on the thickly overgrown grass outside. I quickly gathered up the skirt of the vestment and plunged into the darkness, away from the church's clattering and shrieking chaos.

Running with no thought but to put distance between myself and the awful scene, I soon collided with the iron fence around the churchyard. I found a side gate that creaked partly open when I pushed against it; the freedom and concealing safety of the dark streets was just beyond; I squeezed through the narrow gap and was grasped by strong pairs of hands on either of my arms.

"Here, what's this?" The lamp was lifted above me, and by its glow I saw two constables· sternly examining my face. "You're a rum-looking sort of priest."

I realised I very likely did look suspicious, flushed and out of breath, and my clothing torn and disordered. I gasped out a few syllables without managing to link them into any words of explanation.

"What's going on up there, anyways?" the one constable lifted his lamp to indicate the church. Over my shoulder I could see its windows lit up. "Come along, you – let's just have us a look."

"No!" I shouted. I vainly tried to pull free from my captors. "Don't go up there-"

"Oh, don't, is it? Something going on there you'd like us not to see, eh? Hop it, then; let's go see what you and your mates have been up to." The two of them lifted my feet nearly clear of the ground as they dragged me back towards the church.

The building was silent as the constables pulled me up to the door. Neither carriage was positioned outside. The constables pushed open the door, and we gazed upon an empty space inside.

Empty, that is, of human habitation. Scape, Miss McThane, and the denizens of Wetwick had all departed, having made their various escapes into the night at last. All that was left, to my own appalled eyes, and to the amazement of the constables, was the wreckage of my father's Clerical Automata. In the midst of the fishing tackle strewn about, and the copies of Izaak Walton that had been flung from the hands of the panicking Wetwick residents, the choristers lay tangled as though in the aftermath of some juvenile battlefield. Their shrill piping voices were silent now; the porcelain faces, those that were still intact gazed with rosy-cheeked serenity at the ceiling.

The mechanical priest creaked about in its position by the altar; enough force was left in the master driving spring to force through a last few fragments of its liturgy. One stiff hand raised, knocking its white hair to the side of its benignly smiling face. " Pax vobiscum," it wheezed. "Jumble sale." It then toppled over.

I looked up at the constables as they slowly turned their gaze on me. They were silent, awe-struck by the enormity of my blasphemous crimes.