[Closed] Marvelous Devices (Nicholas Fogg)

[Runcible Spoon]

Vienda -Smike's End, later Rouncewell & Fogg, The Painted Ladies
The 9th through the 10th of Intas, 2720

Bailey Sneed

"Y

ou’re confident it can be done?” Mr Shrike, looking worse than usual and slouched in his chair. The brandy’s untouched, growing tepid. He can still see the legs of it climbing up the sides of the snifter, reaching up, carrying away in vapors the aged stuff. It’s good brandy too. Well, he should know, he’d nicked from that unpleasant banker on Humbolt Street. Not the office. Not the bank. He’s no fool. Bank jobs are for harder men than he. Dangerous men. No, he’ll stick to quick larceny. A recreational bit of second-storey work to winkle a fine brandy out from a man who’d not miss it. That’s a lie. The damn spherical financier will probably complain about it till he gives himself apoplexy. Serves him right too. The man probably fiddles his books. It’s in the nature of bankers.

Mr Shrike’s reached out for the bandy at last, fingers around the rim. They flex and tighten, and then it happens, as it always does. The turns, three turns clockwise, three anti-clockwise, and three clockwise again. Slow tonight, almost languid. The thinking gesture, not the agitation. Mr Shrike is too tired for agitation.

“I don’t know,” he says at last, drawing himself up in his own chair. His own chair. An unexpected development. Welcome, but unexpected. He had never thought he’d take to sitting in a fine, if rather worn, chair sipping brandy with a golly. He would have dismissed it as an improbable fiction. “All I can say is he’s got a damn fine reputation, loves to tinker, and probably charges less that your Mr Ixbridge.”

Ixbridge was Mr Shrike’s usual horologist. Apparently a very good one at that, but inclined to a narrow focus on timepieces. This job requires a more open-minded kov. “Besides,” he said, raising his own glass of brandy, half consumed now, “he’s a Ladies’ man.”

“And you can’t say fairer than that.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth Mr Shrike.”

“Yes,” he says, turning his snifter again in the usual manner, “I thought I might.”

A stack of papers, all neatly bound up in vermillion tape. Mr Shrike’s preferred color, sits on the little hexagonal table between them. Large papers, folded neatly and ready to be placed in the leather courrier’s bag he now perpetually carries. Another finery he’s never expected. Patents, apparently, for some strange clockwork device. A thinking machine. He doubts machines can think. No, that’s not quite true. There is Mr Shrike, afterall, with his field like an infinity of clockwork and his cold, orthogonal construction of a personality. Bloody strange dealing with a man who always had to think about his emotions, had to reason his way to nearly anything other than curiosity, rage, or that dry official sarcasm. No, machines can think. Provided they are made of flesh and bone.

“I don’t know nothing about machines sir. Less still the fancy kind that Lonsdale drafted up here.” He gives his patron a sly look. “Is it quite legal that you have these here papers sir.”

“Oh yes. Filed in the patent office two years ago, languishing for want of funds. Public knowledge.” At last he raises the snifter, but fails to drink. Only more turnings. “Lonsdale's not an horologist, not a practical man. It’s all diagrams and suppositions. But the mechanics seem sound, the mathematics more so. And I don’t need Lonsdale’s machine. Just something simpler, something to handle the number arrays and their dimensions. Something to deal with all the angles”

He’s never quite understood how Mr Shrike uses his magic. Quantitative is all about measurements and numbers, that much he knows. Yet Mr Shrike uses it to aid his memory, to reconstruct meetings, hell, he’s even seen the man try and predict possible futures. And then he’s seen him collapse into a wreck of a man, laid low by headaches, fueled by coffee and that strange horrible tea he drinks. Looks like wine, smells like a chemist’s shop. Bitterer than any sharp ale he’s had.

“I’ll see what I can do. See if this Mr Fogg is as good as they say.”

“See that he is discreet.”

“He’s a Ladies’ man Mr Shrike.”

“And you can’t say fairer than that.”

* * *

Morning now, and the cold still clinging to the air. Remnants of frost in the streets and even up on the hill of Smike’s End the streets are slick and treacherous. So he keeps to the courts and arcades that were covered overnight, where the frost did not settle. A longer walk that he’d have liked, down and down to the riverside, to the bridges to the north. To the Dives. At the end of Blackthorn Bridge he jumps on to a passing tram, headed north, pays the fare with only a twinge of old guilt, and settles himself in for the slow slog through the Rookery, around Saddlery Hill, and at last to the Painted Ladies. To home.

At Hazlar street he ducks in for a coffee. Bastian pressure coffee, more to his taste than the dense, thick stuff the Mugrobi make. He’d grown up here, in these streets and long these allies, and yet he never minded this place, never even knew it was here. Another of Mr Shrike’s strange talents, his own sense of the city. The man could find a decent coffeehouse in the middle of a line of factories. He is half sure the presence of Mr Shrike causes coffeehouses to spring into existence. Only somehow, they had always been there.

Coffee consumed and his bones warmed, he goes out into the cold. Three streets over, past the costermonger’s on Bletchly, he locates the shop. Rouncewell and Fogg. A narrow establishment, green-painted window frames in that glossy, nautical paint that never quite seems to fade or to chip. Neat and orderly. That bodes well. A clockmaker's should be neat.

At the door he pauses, looks up at the chimes, counts them. No luck. Only a single brass bell. Seven would have served him better. He might have sway in such a place. Well, not him, but the family. Near enough to count. No such luck. A pity.

He pushes in the door, cold outside gives way to warmth within. The single bell rings bright and clear. The place is full of clocks, of cabinets and cases. Everything dusted, clean. Everything just so. A faint consistent ticking, the sounds of a thousand pendulums and escapements, of cogs and winding springs, fills all the space. It smells of clock oil and competence. All good signs.

He is dressed as respectable as he can manage, and he tries to look as though he’s always been so. Good, if worn clothes, second hand and well looked after, hair tamed as much as can ever be managed. Freshly scrubbed. To the counter now, and to the personage behind it he addressed his remarks. “Is Mr Fogg in? I’d like a consultation, if it can be managed.” He pats the courier bag slug about him. “I understand he a man who likes a challenge.”

[Nicholas Fogg]

10th of Intas | Rouncewell & Fogg

I
t had been a slow day so far. Only one customer, and Billy had been able to see to them well enough. Nicholas had heard the transaction through the open door of his workroom, and he’d been pleased with the boy’s sharp action and knowledge of the shop’s stock. The man hadn’t let him touch a watch yet, but Billy still soaked up information like a sponge, and Nicholas rarely had to tell him something twice.

Nicholas liked slow days. The minutes ticked by, marked by the soothing sound of a myriad timepieces, and his hands moved with them, deftly unpicking screws and gears, finely balanced springs, and setting them back in place. Long fingers moved with calculated precision, head bent over the standing glass magnifying the minute workings, reaching for parts and tools, their positions so ingrained in his memory that his gaze had no need to shift from the work before him. Occasionally a fingertip nudged brass-rimmed spectacles up the bridge of his long nose, narrow lips pursed in a gentle frown of concentration. Most everything about Nicholas was long, spindly, spiderlike; and he had spun himself a ticking, chiming, mechanical web from which he rarely needed to venture.

-----

The shop bell chimed, and Billy looked up guiltily, shoving something under the counter. If the wick entering were bothered to look, he might catch a glimpse of the luridly- illustrated cover of one of the so-called Tally Dreadfuls so popular with young folk and those of a more bloodthirsty bent. This one appeared to be titled ‘The Dance of Death’, the letters dripping in what, to the untrained eye, looked rather like treacle, but was undoubtedly meant to be blood.

Billy hopped off his stool as the customer entered, running a hand through cropped, dirty-blond curls before setting his cap straight atop them once more. Despite the well-worn nature of his clothes, they were all clean; as were his hands, and the long shop apron he wore. He looked to be around twelve or thirteen years old, and greeted the customer with a bright smile, and a chirpy,

“Morning, sir! Welcome to Rouncewell and Fogg, how may I help?”

He nodded along to the enquiry.

“Yes sir, I’ll just go and-” He was cut off mid-sentence by a reedy but nevertheless clear voice issuing from beyond a half-open door at the back of the shop, beyond a wrought-iron spiral staircase hung all over with what appeared to be barometers.

“I’m just finishing up a piece. If the gentleman doesn’t mind waiting, I’ll be out in twenty minutes, or he can come in while I finish this devilish tricky carriage clock.”

If said gentleman were to follow the direction of that voice, he would find Nicholas in a neat, uncluttered workroom at the back of the building, well lit with mirrored oil lamps, at a work bench covered in pigeonholes and drawers, trays of gleaming brass and steel parts laid out in easy reach, and the watchmaker himself deep in the guts of a beautiful little skeleton clock, partly disassembled on the worn black velvet that draped his worksurface.

He would not look up as the other entered, he rarely did when working.

“Good morning. How may I be of assistance?”

He gestured with a free hand to a worn, brown armchair in the corner. “Feel free to sit,” and then gently called out as he had earlier, “Billy, some tea if you please.”

[Runcible Spoon]

Vienda -Rouncewell & Fogg, The Painted Ladies
The Morning of the 10th of Intas, 2720

Bailey Sneed

A

day of oddities in a year of strangeness. It is not often he is called ‘sir’. Has it happened before? Perhaps, but only in mockery. The shop-boy does not seem to be in a mocking mood. The Dance of Death was not conducive to such. It is hard to say where the shop-boy left off. The book had vanished so suddenly. No need to hide it from the likes of him. He had finished his own copy last Ophus. Has the shop-boy arrived at the terrifying scene where the Countess of Osstenso and her party of fluttering ladies are nearly all burned to death in their wild-woman costumes at the masquerade ball? The third ball in which elegant young ladies are either killed or maimed horribly? Possibly not. His face is too cheerful and obliging. Either he has not enjoyed the horror of that scene or else icewater courses in his veins.

It is a bit chilly.

“Dance of Death’s not bad, but real and proper blood curdling, well, you can’t beat The Eyes of Mr Roylott.” He gives a devious grin and taps the side of his nose. The universal gesture of obvious conspirators. About as subtle as a foghorn.

More strangeness, more terms of address all out of place. The voice from the back room, he presumed it to be the eponymous Mr Fogg, had just called him a gentleman. First ‘sir’ and now this. With his Ladies’ accent thick as porridge, his second-hand clothes, no one in their right mind would call him a gentleman. For a fleeting moment his is nearly offended. No reason to be. Just the usual over-politeness of shopkeepers. Well, shopkeepers who had a tendency to cater to a more genteel clientele. Clientele like Mr Shrike.

The man would feel right at home in this place with its gears and cogwheels, its many neat cabinets and the general air of everything being ‘just so’. He half-expects there to be unsettling orchids in little vases about the place. None in sight. None as of yet.

The shop-boy ushers him along, to a workroom, to the domain of the voice which has called him ‘gentleman’. The voice of a thin, spidery man too focused on his work to be more than indifferently cordial. It is about time something feels right. Clock parts and a vast array of little pigeon holes, like empty windows, like the cells of a honeycomb line the room, the light all focused on the man at his work. A careful man. A dedicated man. That matches everything he’s been told about the estimable Mr Fogg. Reliable sources are worth their weight in gold.

The man has waved him to a chair, and so he sits, still as can be expected. Motion seems out of place in this room. Motion not controlled by the horologist. Sound too seems banished, replaced only with faint ticking. Mr Fogg works rapidly, carefully. An economy of motion. Hand like a pickpocket, or a locksmith. Are the lights really necessary? Or can the man repair a clock by feel alone?

“Mr Fogg,” he says, sitting as formal as he can. Not very formal. Still, he is not sprawling in the chair as he would in more comfortable surroundings. “I ain’t no gent, begging your pardon, so no sense standing on ceremony. Happy to wait for you to finish with your,” he cannot quite tell what the man is doing. Something with clocks. Now there’s a helpful supposition. “Well, whatever fiddling it is that you’re about.”

The man is human, of that he is sure. Still, the natural dignity of the man wafts from him like a perfume. “I’ve heard tell you take commissions? Sometimes curious ones? Marvelous devices, bits of fancywork that don’t have no practical use but to astound and confuse. If I’ve got that right, and between ourselves I hope I have or it’ll be as much as my hide is worth.” So there’s a lie. If this fails, Mr Shrike will glare at him, tell him to find some other delicate kov to do the work. Then, as punishment he’ll likely have to skulk around the Red Madame’s place in Bellington, standing out like a damn sore thumb amidst the fine ladies and gents and their pet poets and domesticated painters. No money for pies or ale neither. “My principal, that is, the fine kov who sends me about on his errands wonders if you might be available for such a commission.” He pulls the courier bag onto his lap and draws out the neat folio of drawings and plans. “You familiar with,” he takes up a drawing, refers to the name signed in over-precise letters, and far too small, that grace every page. A pause as he confirms the name. “With Lonsdale’s work on calculating machines? My principal wonders if such a contraption can be built. Wonders if you, Mr Fogg, might have a go of it.”

[Nicholas Fogg]

10th of Intas | Rouncewell & Fogg

Billy’s eyes widened at the wick’s familiarity with bloodcurdling fiction, and flushed somewhat at having been caught reading by a customer.

“Thankye sir, I’ll look et up.” The boy paused for a moment, then continued in hushed tones, “Could ye not tell Mr Fogg, sir? ‘M not supposed to have ‘em out on the shop floor where a golly might see-”

The boy broke off as Mr Fogg’s voice filtered out from the workroom, and nipped out from behind the counter to direct his fellow reader of lurid novels to the back of the shop with a conspiratorial grin.

-----

“Hm.”

Approximately ninety-five percent of Nicholas’ attention was on the carriage clock, but that five percent was clearly all he needed to bestow upon this particular client, because all he seemed to be doing was rambling. The wick perched in his space like a jackdaw in the domain of an owl, bristling his feathers, chattering and squawking, filling the silence with words.

“You did...ah… pass the orreries on your...way in, correct?” the watchmaker murmured, squinting at the mechanism, periodically holding his breath so as not to fog the shining parts. “They are complex devices... that could not possibly...be construed to be any kind of...ah..timepiece.”

There were two of them, one set in the window, gleaming brass and spheres of semi-precious stone, on a rosewood base the size of a dinner plate. The other was set into its own little waist-height mahogany table, a metre in radius. Where the small one was a pretty tabletop toy, this one was clearly an astronomical instrument, lines of orbit etched into the brass tabletop, the gently circling celestial objects painted with a precise and detailed hand.

He had started out with tellurion. Francis had made one once, kept it in the shop as a display piece, and as a child, Nicholas had been fascinated with the movement of the heavenly spheres above the horizontal clockface. He had sat for hours at a time staring at the little ivory moons, running outside at night to check the position of the true objects in comparison. Armillary spheres had honed his fine work, engraving and movements not only precise, but visible and beautiful. Orreries and more complex astronomical clocks were his main passion- he was experimenting with cloisonne enamel work on a current commission for one of his more extravagant clients.

A pause. Clearly this man required a more direct answer.

“Which is to say that yes, I do, when time permits. What is this about?”

Precise fingers reached into the movements. There was a click, a wheel turned, and a delicate chiming tune sounded. Nicholas closed his eyes, listening closely for anything out of place, a catching gear, scraping hammer, warped note…

The name drew him out of his concentration, and he actually looked at the man directly for the first time.

“Lonsdale?”

The change in Nicholas was instantaneous. The bearings of his worn swivel chair squeaked in protest as he spun to face him. It was as if a light sparked behind his eyes, and his previously stern countenance glowed with interest.

“I have read some of his hypotheses, but- you have plans?”

He all but snatched the sheaf of papers from the wick, long fingers rifling through the loose leaves of notes and sketches, stopping every moment or so with a small, almost musical noise of amusement or surprise.

“This is...I never thought...And your employer wishes this made?” Grey eyes met the wick’s, bright with anticipation, and a small smile curved narrow lips.

“I cannot promise results… these are clearly drawn up by a man with only the faintest grasp of mechanical undertakings…” He paused, glancing down at the papers, eyes narrowing as he focused on a detail. “...and it will be expensive, these movements require some of the finest tolerances I’ve ever worked with to have any hope of giving accurate readings, but…”

...but if I can achieve this…...this is historic, an actual, physical computing engine of this complexity? Lonsdale hypothesised it could rival the Galdor mind, to be even one small part of bringing this to fruition…

The gentle, chiming tune of the musical carriage clock slowed and stopped.

Nicholas recollected himself. A shutter dropped, and he was once more the reserved, professional craftsman, sibilant voice soft in polite enquiry.

“Would your employer wish to meet in person to discuss this?”

[Runcible Spoon]

Vienda -Rouncewell & Fogg, The Painted Ladies
The Morning of the 10th of Intas, 2720

Bailey Sneed

N

othing like dropping a name to get a kov’s attention. The toffs up on the Hill made a game of it, telling each other in unctuous tones that they knew some personage or other. Politician, artist, socialite, it all sounded the same. He’s heard it often enough. A fair amount can be learned hiding behind an ornamental screen and pilfering the elegant paperweights, and the more elegant papers under them, while some damned tedious party is going on. Down here, in the Environs of the Ladies (hereafter, the Environs), . . . Damnit Mr Shrike. He’s picking up too many of his principal’s habits. In the Environs, well, names were dropped either to threaten, or to give a wink and a nod. I know a kov, who knows a kov, and all that. Lonsdale was a drop more like that. And he himself does indeed know a kov. A kov who's got an in with all manner of paperwork.

“As far as I follow Mr Fogg, the papers are all on the up and up. Lonsdale, like the fine trusting idiot he doubtless is.” Here he gives a conspiratorial wink and a knowing smile. A wordless sigh that trusting idiocy is a congenital defect of gollies. “Well, he goes and registers the things at the patent office. Poor deluded sheep.” A shake of the head, reinforcing the point. “Unlucky for him. Lucky for my principal. A great man for paperwork, especially the fiddly kind. And lucky for you sir. Or, at least it may be.”

From time to time he wonders if Mr Shrike isn’t some manifestation of paperwork, some sort of tutelary spirit of archives and policy papers. He cannot imagine tutelary spirits get out much, what with all that tutelarying to do. He’s never been quite clear what the word means. Possibly something to do with tutors? Mr Shrike doesn’t get out much either. Mostly writes things down in the strange sharp miniscule hand of his, producing memos and clocks know what other documents. Work, coffee, more work, more coffee, and occasionally getting himself thrashed at that boxing den on Canby Lane. Perhaps he is a man after all. Just a damned odd one.

Fogg’s looking over the papers now, reading them as though he knows exactly what they mean. There’s a mind behind those spectacles, and one that turns like the gears of all these fine and fancy clocks. Clocks, and more than clocks. Orreries. Another word he does not know. At least a definition and an example is being provided. Very kind of Mr Fogg.

“Is that what those are?” He makes a series of spinning gestures, imitating its wheels within wheels turning little colored spheres. “I thought it were some puzzle, or maybe a clock for an eccentric blind gent.” The heavens, rendered in brass and wood and stone. Is that what they look like? Spheres and discs and little turning gears? It has always seemed like a magic lantern show to him. Something projected upon the dark of the night sky. Well, when there’s dark to be had. The Lamplighter’s Strike of 2716 was the last time he saw real night-time darkness. Black velvet with little chips of shattered diamond scattered about. Like the display cloth in a gem-cutters. It had been pretty for a night or two, but after that, the multitude of stars had seemed like a host of prying eyes, or greencoats with their lanterns, just beyond the edge of sound. Ominous. Unsettling.

Decent folk shouldn’t have to worry about such things. It ain’t civil.

A smile’s forming on Fogg’s face. Small, but present.Growing. The bait has been taken. Now he has to land the fish. It cannot be any harder than helping Charlie try and land that stupid sturgeon she had snagged in the Pool. They’d both fallen in and been dragged a bit. Lightly drowned for their troubles. Then Da has whacked with an oar. They’d been afraid to eat it, so they sold it to a fishmonger they particularly disliked. Ugly things, sturgeons. Unnatural. Just like too many stars. Fogg’s not half so ugly. And, he thinks, if I play this right, he may just land himself.

“There’s a part of the machine, or so I’ve been told,” he leafs through the papers to find the ones Mr Shrike has marked. “Yeah, this bit here. Something about storing huge arrays of numbers, and then measuring the cousin similarity?” He frowns. “Not cousin, no, but like that. Only with angles.” He’s only the murkiest idea what he is talking about. It makes sense to Mr Shrike. It seems to make sense to Fogg.

“If you can give it a go,” he says, when Fogg’s fascination runs up against the practicalities, “well, I’m sure my principal would be more than pleased. He’s not one who demands success you understand.” No, it’s worse than that. He demands thoroughness, demands that failures be accounted for, learned from, and avoided. Much easier to take a beating from Wilkes than to have Mr Shrike spend an evening ‘correcting’ his mistakes in the sharp, cold voice of his. Are all men of detailed precision like this? Is this why the shopboy had insisted that nothing be said of his reading? Would Fogg demand he stop reading literature and instead require that he reason some ‘improving’ book? Horrible murder is always improving. Keeps the imagination running. And, he looks around, in a place like this, imagination would seem to be a positive boon. “But a fair attempt from an interested party, well, that’s as good as gold.”

What will Mr Shrike make of the horologist? They’ll have to meet, otherwise he’s going to have to learn to spout a lot of mathematical nonsense on one side, and a lot of mechanical flummery on the other. That ain’t the best use of his time. He’s got people to look for, names to trace, baubles to burgle. “I think you’re going to have to meet Mr Shrike, that is Mr Shrikeweed. Better you two have a long and tedious chat you’ll both enjoy. An odd man, my principal. He’ll insist that any meeting occur in the vicinity of coffee. There’s that Bastian place over on Hazlar, if you want to stay local. Or there’s a Mugrobi coffeehouse off of Crosstown he likes. Say the word, and I’ll arrange it. But, no matter where, there’ll have to be strong coffee. Between ourselves, Mr Fogg, I don’t think he quite works right without it.”

[Nicholas Fogg]

10th of Intas | Rouncewell & Fogg

Even as the man spoke, Nicholas’ mind was already whirling with plans.

“Yes, yes, of course…registered, it is what one does...”

One hand shot out to drag over a piece of paper, scribbled on one side in a spidery hand, the other to a pencil, and Nicholas began to sketch out an approximation of one of the diagrams in the blueprints.

“I would have to work on retainer, you must understand?” He glanced up over the wired rims of his spectacles, briefly meeting the other man’s eyes before that colourless gaze flicked back to the papers. “This is experimental work, and the outlay for parts alone will be considerable. Not to mention a premises rented,” long fingers gestured at the tiny expanse of his workroom, “I do not have the workspace for such an undertaking.”

He glanced down at the papers in his hands, then at the hastily annotated sketch he had just made, clearly considering something.

“Might I...that is…”

A pause.

“Might I keep these in the interim? I would like to have a little theoretical work under my belt before meeting your Mr Shrike...weed.” It was not so much a stammer, that pause, as a product of the last syllable having been entered into his files in a slightly different slot than the former.

When he did consider it, which he’d had occasion to do, Nicholas found himself thinking of his mind like a filing cabinet. Organised, most certainly, but not necessarily according to a system that anyone else would understand. The connections he made seemed to confuse many people. Not that their opinions had any bearing on how he chose to engage his thoughts.

Rifling through the pages once more, something else caught his eye, and his pencil jotted down another note.

“Coffee? Well, I suppose I need not drink the stuff.” His lip twitched briefly in what might have been a smile. “I’d be more than happy to travel to a place he is comfortable, I’m sure I’ll be just as out of place in any coffee house, Mugrobi or Bastian.”

Serendipitously, at this point, the shop boy jangled and clattered his way into the workroom bearing a tea tray, china wellmade but clearly old, the gold worn away from the rim, little painted flowers patinaed. He set it down on a hastily-cleared corner of the workbench, and began pouring a cup, nodding politely to Bailey where the man sat, awkwardly, on the horsehair armchair in the corner.

“I believe that is our business concluded...for the moment. Please do pass on my thanks to your employer for this opportunity. I look forward to meeting with him.”

Nicholas turned to the boy, genuine warmth in his eyes.

“Thank you, Billy. Would you see this gentleman out, and take down his details into the big ledger.”

There was only one teacup.

[Bailey Sneed]

Vienda -Rouncewell & Fogg, The Painted Ladies

The Morning of the 10th of Intas, 2720

E

ven from here he can see the wheels turning behind the clockmaker’s eyes. It is easy enough to read, well, at least after years of watching Mr Shrike. It’s partly keen interest, partly cold concentration, and partly something he can only describe as hunger. In its way, it is a fearsome expression. He has no desire to ever be its object. Probably like being slowly flensed with a knife made of freezing steel. Unpleasant in the extreme. Good job he’s neither a complex series of reports nor a curious device. Just an errand boy. No, a factotum. That’s the word Mr Shrike always uses. Sounds grand. Someday he will have to look it up.

Today is not that day.
The clockmaker is scribbling now, a thin, precise script. Another man of notes and papers. How in the name of all the gods has he ended up in the world of papery men? No matter. The man is on to business now, on to money. Money is something he can handle. He had dispensation. Strange to trust money matters to a thief. Or maybe not. Never pay with your own money when someone elses will do. Another adage. He never thought it could apply to business. Maybe this is what being a factotum is. “Retainer, yeah, that was Mr Shrike’s notion as well. He’s a legal gent, been before the bar and all that, so retainers ain’t no stranger to him. I ain’t got full,” What is that word? The fancy one he’s been meaning to use for just such an occasion? “Plenipotentiary,” that’s the baby, “powers. You follow?” Of course he follows. He reaches into the recesses of his coat and pulls out a folded leather wallet. “But I do have what might be called an advance.” He lays open the wallet and draws out an ornately printed piece of paper. A banker’s draft made out to a Mr Nicholas Fogg. “Five concords, seven, and six. Apparently some dusty ledger somewhere claims that is enough for two-weeks decent pay for a skilled and technical artisan.” It seems a decent amount. Enough to cover the usual bills, taxes not dodged, rent, and still have a sum left over. It’s more than Mr Shrike pays him. But then again, lodgings are free, and he has a sheaf of documents, real documents, stating he can read and write as he pleases, can enter into usual contracts, and even a pass to a local bathhouse. So, pay’s nothing like luxurious, but the perks are not to be sneezed at.

“As to keeping the documents.” He racks his brain, trying to puzzle it out. The papers are copies, of course. The originals still filed somewhere. Originals, one set of copies. No, that makes no sense. Mr Shrike does things in threes. There will be another copy at least. One original, one for Fogg, one for his own records. Seems reasonable. He will act as such. He is a factotum, after all. “I think you can keep these for now, have a good look at them and give yourself a right headache looking at all the fiddly bits. And it’s all fiddly bits as far as I can smoke.”

There are other matters to arrange. A meeting for one. Mr Shrike hates traveling too far from his usual rounds, and he’s been damned busy of late. The Elephant is better then, and more comfortable to boot. “If you don’t mind making the trek to Crosstown, over by the courts, say on the thirteenth? On Gadwine Street. And no worries about you sticking out. You look like an intelligent gent, and no bother to no one. The lady who runs the place is human, like you.” Well, not quite. Sebele is about as dark as her coffee beans and looks like she came straight from Thul Ka itself. Got a Rookery accent so thick you can slice it and spread it on toast. A real Vienda lady. “And she ain’t a bad sort. Even lets me lurk about from time to time.” He gives the clockmaker a cheeky grin.

When the shop boy re-enters it is with a tea tray. Nice stuff, all floral and pretty, be worth the snaffling, were he on the game today. He is not. The signal is subtle, but it is clear enough. The matter is settled for now, and it is time for him to leave. Well played Mr Fogg. Well played.

“If the thirteenth can be arranged, then at the sixteenth hour?” He looks about the place, at the clocks ticking away and at the second man he has met with gears behind his eyes. No need to request he be on time. It would be an insult. Besides, Mr Fogg is likely never late.