The Watchmaker Of Filigree Street Part 2

Lady Margaret was at the far end of a long, wide avenue. The cab took them past other libraries and townhouses, then the redbrick walls of Keble College with their zigzag patterns, which looked ridiculous and spoke, Grace suspected, of the general unavailability of proper Cotswolds sandstone. Matsumoto's college had bought it all for their new buildings.

There was talk of new buildings at Lady Margaret, too. Grace hoped the plans would go through. As the cab stopped outside, the hall looked impoverished even after Keble. Because she almost never took a cab and so never made the transition between the great spires of the town and here in so little time, she rarely noticed how tiny it was. n.o.body could have called it a college in the sense that the others were. From the outside, it looked like nothing more exciting than a white stone manor house, nicely planted about with Virginia creeper and lavender, but hardly impressive. There were only nine students in residence.

Today, though, there was much more activity than usual. Other cabs were arriving, and women with parasols were gravitating towards the doors two by two, or slightly ahead of husbands. Some of the men saw Matsumoto and made a beeline across, looking hopeful.

'Ah, Grace, joining us at last?'

'Good afternoon, Bertha,' Grace smiled, though she could feel that the smile had a certain rictus-like quality. Bertha lived in the room next to hers, but she studied cla.s.sics, the most pointless subject in the university. It was hard to communicate with somebody who spent every waking hour poring over the linguistic cleverness of men who had been dead for two thousand years. Matsumoto was bad enough, but cla.s.sicists were honorary Catholics. Now, Bertha was manning the main door like a bishop.

'Perhaps you'd like to change into something more suitable before attending?' she said, lifting her eyebrows at Grace's borrowed clothes.

'Yes. This is far too hot.' Grace pulled off the jacket and gave it to Matsumoto. 'I'll be in in a minute. There's no need to wait for me.'

'Who's this?' Bertha demanded. 'You can't bring in your ser-vants, there isn't room.'

'This is Akira Matsumoto. He isn't my servant, he's the Emperor's second cousin.'

'Do you speak English?' Bertha asked him, too loudly.

'I do,' Matsumoto said, unruffled, 'though I'm afraid my sense of direction is somewhat hazy in all languages. Can you remind me where I ought to wait? Somebody did tell me last time, but I've quite forgotten now.'

Bertha was wrong-footed. 'Through there on the left. There are refreshments and ... yes.'

Matsumoto smiled and slipped past her towards the anteroom and the smell of pipe smoke. Grace watched him go. She couldn't tell whether he was charming because he had a deep-seated love of humanity, or because charm always got him what he wanted. It was tempting to think that the former notion was nave and the latter far more likely, but he kept it up all the time. Her own reserves of bonhomie ran low after twenty minutes. She shook her head once and went slowly upstairs to change.

Her brother had bought her a fob watch for her birthday. It opened in two ways. On one side was the clock face, on the other, a filigree latticework. When the back lid opened, the filigree rearranged itself into the shape of a tiny swallow. Clever tracks of clockwork let it fly and swoop along the inside of the lid, silver wings clinking. She took it down with her in order to have something to fiddle with. The meeting had started by the time she arrived and she had to slip in to sit at the back. She ran her fingernail over the maker's mark on the back of the watch. K. Mori. An Italian, probably; Englishmen were rained on too often to come up with anything that imaginative.

Bertha stood on the stage where the high table usually was, her hands clasped in front of her and blushing prettily while she gave her speech. Every now and then, there was a smattering of applause. She was saying the usual things. Grace clicked open her watch and clicked it closed again three times, watching the swallow flit. The clicking was sharp and probably irritating to the women further along the bench, but two of them were knitting.

'And so,' Bertha was saying, 'I propose that this society offer its support to Mr Gladstone's establishment in any way possible, whether through our influence over male relations, or through party donations. Would anyone like to say anything?'

Someone in a white bonnet lifted her hand. 'I'm not sure about Mr Gladstone,' she said. 'He doesn't seem entirely trustworthy. My uncle is a phrenologist and says that the shape of his skull is typical of a liar.'

'That's utter nonsense,' someone else said. 'My husband works at the Home Office and has found him to be an absolute gentleman. He provided wine for all his staff at Christmas.'

Grace turned over the watch and wished that the ingenious Mr Mori could have devised a way to make time speed up. It had only been fifteen minutes. The meeting would last at least an hour. It took Bertha nearly that long to carry her motion. Almost as soon as there was a general agreement, the porter leaned in and cleared his throat.

'Ah, ladies? The gentlemen are declaring their intention to repair to their clubs.'

There was a flurry of movement as the women hurried to intercept their relatives before they could be left behind. Grace slipped out first and found Matsumoto waiting for her just outside, leaning against a door frame.

'There,' he said. 'Duty done. That wasn't so difficult, was it?'

'You weren't there. Outside, outside. If women ever get the vote, I'm moving to Germany.'

His lip quirked. 'How very unfeminine of you.'

'Have you listened to them? Oh, we can't support Gladstone, he's got terribly odd hair, but wait, he's a lovely man really, even if he does have a queer nose ... '

As they pa.s.sed back outside, where the air had cooled now, he lifted his eyebrows at her. 'I hate to state the obvious, Carrow, but you are one of them.'

'I am an atypical example,' she snapped. 'I've had a proper education. I don't spend my time mumbling about crockery. Anyone who does shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the d.a.m.n vote, never mind Parliament. Christ, if women members were allowed now, foreign policy would be decided according to the state of the Kaiser's sideburns. I'll kick anyone who asks me to sign a pet.i.tion, I swear.' She paused. 'Did you promise me some wine, earlier?'

'I did,' Matsumoto smiled. 'If you'll come back to New College.'

'Yes please.'

'You are ludicrous, I hope you understand.'

'I understand.' She sighed. 'Is it white wine? Red tastes like vinegar.'

'Of course it's white wine, I'm j.a.panese. I'd like to walk if you don't mind, now it's cooler,' he added, nodding at the clouded sky.

'Yes, me too.'

As they walked, he took her arm. 'I must say, I don't approve of this dress. It's ghastly. My tailoring is infinitely better.'

'It is. May I have that jacket back?'

'You may.' He put it around her shoulders.

It smelled of him rather than her. 'This is the one you were wearing earlier.'

'I wanted to keep my new one new. I enjoyed the biscuits, by the way.'

The wind rose and Grace pulled the sleeves over her hands, then paused. Each sleeve had only one b.u.t.ton, and each b.u.t.ton had been made in the shape of a silver swallow. She looked up. 'These are good.'

'Oh, do you think? I bought them specially, actually. I've always had rather a weakness for swallows. When I was a boy, we used to watch swarms and swarms of them from the castle walls. They fly in enormous numbers sometimes in j.a.pan, and they make the strangest shapes. One can see why people in medieval times thought they were seeing spirits and suchlike. Reminds me of home.'

Grace took out her watch and showed him the filigree swallow inside. Matsumoto almost never talked about j.a.pan. Or, he would mention it in pa.s.sing as a way to ill.u.s.trate the deficiencies of the English, but he had never told her what it was like there. She had a.s.sumed, wrongly, that he didn't think of it.

He smiled. 'May I?'

She pa.s.sed the watch to him. He turned it around and around. The weighted swallow stood upright whichever way the watch was held.

'There's something familiar about this,' he murmured. His black eyes sharpened. 'Who's the maker?'

'Some Italian.'

He looked relieved.

FOUR.

LONDON, 30 MAY 1884.

Thaniel lay in bed and watched the sun brighten his ceiling. He hadn't slept until an hour ago because he had been doing the last of the cleaning the grate and the hearth, and the insides of the cupboards, completely empty except for the crockery. Now he felt as though he were trying to get up at midnight. Usually he took a night shift on Fridays, but the senior clerk had reshuffled the timetable to bring in the fastest coders for eight o'clock, and leave the slowest for the night. Today, the night shift wouldn't matter; if Clan na Gael kept to their promise, the Home Office would be safe or gone by midnight. The tall ship outside was creaking again, rigging squeaky from the damp and loud because he had left the window open overnight. Somebody was repairing the hull. He could smell the tar.

He waited for the clock to reach seven. The mist outside made the air close and stuffy, and he had to peel himself off the sheets.

In the morning quiet, the click of the watch's clasp was sharp as it unlocked itself. He turned his head without moving the rest of himself. Pressed down by an invisible finger, the b.u.t.ton on the catch lowered, and the case eased open, no quicker than an oyster sh.e.l.l. Once it had opened wholly, it sat inanimate again. He waited, but it did not move again. At last, he lifted it up by its chain.

The face was gla.s.s, to show off the clockwork underneath. It was working. The time was right. Under the hands, the silver balance swung on a hairline wire, and the cogs that wheeled round the seconds ticked under jewel bearings. Behind those was more clockwork, very dense, much more elaborate than an ordinary watch. He couldn't tell what it was measuring. From the open cover, a round watchpaper feathered out and settled on his knee, face down. He turned it over. A border of fine leaves encircled the maker's mark: K. Mori 27 Filigree Street Knightsbridge Mori. He didn't know what kind of name that was. It sounded Italian. He fitted the watchpaper back into the lid and kept staring at it in s.n.a.t.c.hes while he got up shave at the mirror, tie, collar. He had gone through the same motions in the mornings and in the nights for long enough to know, without looking at a clock, that it took twenty-one minutes to dress. It was so well established that if he tried to do anything unusual, or go any more slowly, he felt a pressure on the base of his skull. It made his study of the watch difficult, and the question of whether or not to bring it with him more feverish than it needed to be. At last he picked it up. He wanted to show it to Williamson. As he closed the door behind him, he took one last look around the room. Everything was clean, cleaner than he had found it, and there was no clutter. If Annabel had to come down to see to it, she would only have to spend half an hour packing up what he had left.

He set off in the thready mist. It was still dense over the river, where it made skeleton ghosts of the ships' masts and trapped the stale smell of the water. The way took him past Parliament and Westminster Abbey, whose high walls threw the path into a shadow that still held the night-time cold, then up to Whitehall Street and its rank of new, bright buildings. The knot that had been forming deep in his intestines tightened. The bomb at Victoria had been a little clockwork device that might have fitted into a s...o...b..x. The springs of even an ordinary watch could go strong for more than a day. There was every chance that the new bomb was in place already.

The yellow of the stairs sounded far away, and the telegraphy office on the second floor seemed further up too. He had to stare at the nearest telegraph machine for a few minutes before he could lift his hands and wind in a new reel of transcript paper, and when he did, he gripped it too hard and bent the upper edge in five places where his fingers had been. He had no time to put in a straighter one before the machine thrummed and began scratching out a message. Being forced to concentrate, and do something, made him pull himself together. It was stupid to think there would definitely be a bomb in Whitehall. If everybody went about paralysed, Clan na Gael wouldn't need to bother with dynamite to bring the civil service to a grinding halt. He had never even met an Irishman, but he felt suddenly determined that he'd be d.a.m.ned if he was going to worry and shudder his way through the day.

The clicks and pauses came in the hiccuping rhythm of Williamson's code.

Clockwork bomb found and- disabled at base of Nelson's Column. Field officer reports it looks- complex. Decent springs used and sixteen packets of dynamite. Timer set to go in- thirteen hours i.e. 9 p.m. Sending uniforms to search HO again today please confirm receipt ...

While the code ran, Thaniel held the end of the transcript paper with one hand and rested the other on the bronze k.n.o.b of the key. As soon as Williamson stopped, he replied, GM Dolly message received.

A pause. GM was good morning, but Thaniel realised then that Williamson, with his meticulous typing, probably did not know it. His own English had devolved rapidly since he had become a telegraphist. There was a shorthand for everything. GM, good morning, GA, go ahead, 1, wait a moment, BO, b.u.g.g.e.r off, generally to the Foreign Office.

How do you- always know it's me?

The way you type.

You HO boys are- disturbing sometimes. Going- for a drink after? Everyone seems- to be planning to descend on the- Rising Sun.

It was a bar opposite the Yard, just down from Trafalgar Square.

Hope so, Thaniel sent back. Plan not to die in service of British Government. Pay insufficient. Remember that watch that was left at my house?

Y-es?

It was locked before. It opened this morning. I think you should have a look at it.

How big?

Watch-sized.

Not explosive then. It's- b.l.o.o.d.y odd, but no time today for anything without- dynamite in it. Sorry. Must go.

Wait. You said the timer on the column bomb was set for nine tonight. If there are other bombs, should we expect those at the same time?

A long pause. Then, Yes.

Thaniel delivered the first message to the senior clerk and threw away the rest of the transcripts. By the time he came back, they were uncrumpling slowly in the wastepaper basket like the tendons of a dead thing relaxing. He watched them and felt crumpled too. His neck had been aching lately because there was never time to stretch or walk.

'Williamson says to expect it all at nine o'clock tonight,' he said to the room.

There was a small silence as the other three paused in their coding. As they did, a boom of gunfire cracked the air. It made the four of them jump, before they all dissolved into nervous laughter. It was only Horse Guards. They fired shots in the parade ground at eight o'clock every morning. Thaniel lifted out the watch anyway to be certain. Sure enough, the filigree hands showed eight. The rose gold sheened its familiar voice-colour.

'Phew!' Park said, with a brittle enthusiasm. 'Where did you get that?'

'It was a present.'

Park's transcript paper creaked and then crackled as it buckled in on itself. When he had written down the message, he peered down at the watchpaper in the lid. 'Mori,' he read. 'He's quite well known, isn't he?'

'I don't know,' said Thaniel honestly. The other central exchange machine started up too, and they had to turn away from each other.

The senior clerk pa.s.sed a folder full of notes over his shoulder while he wrote. The notes were messages to be telegraphed today. Still listening to the central exchange and transcribing with his right hand, Thaniel opened the file and began to tap out the top messages with his left, to the rhythm of the opening chorus of Iolanthe. He had seen it last year. Arthur Sullivan's music tended to be disguised behind silly lyrics in comic opera, but underneath, its real colours were as good as anything by more respected composers. He still had the programme and a lithograph print at home, locked in the music box.

'How do you do that?' Park said, talkative now that they had broken their usual silence. The two operators on his far side glanced toward Thaniel too, eavesdropping.

'What?'

'Write with one hand and code with the other.'

'Oh. It's like playing the piano.'

'Where did you learn to play the piano?' said Park.

'My ... father was gamekeeper at a big house, and the gentleman there was a concert pianist with no children. He was bursting to teach. If I'd said no, he would have tried the dog.'

They laughed. 'Are you any good?'

'Not any more.'

Williamson's officers arrived soon after. Thaniel wanted to make them look at the watch, but Williamson had said it was nothing, and insisting would have frightened the other operators. Once they had searched under the telegraphs, Thaniel faded back into the scratching of the code, and worked his way through the file of notes. They were mostly meaningless to him, being snippets of conversations whose totality he had not heard. A few did make sense. The Foreign Office was throwing a ball next month and there was a message confirming an order of six casks of champagne for the Foreign Minister.

'Steepleton, is that from Gilbert and Sullivan?'

He looked round at the senior clerk. 'Yes?'

'Pay attention to the messages! The fate of the nation might well be in your hands!'

'It isn't. They're full of Lord Leveson's champagne.'

'Get on with it,' the senior clerk sighed.

The policemen returned three hours later and declared an all clear. In that time they couldn't have done anything but stroll the halls and glance in a few cupboards. The senior clerk announced suddenly that all those who had begun on the early shift should pause for tea and some food. They would work on until nine. They would be free after that, one way or the other.

Glad for the chance to stretch, Thaniel drifted to the small canteen, where he waited in line for a cup of soup that was, just for today, being provided free of charge. The usual canteen chatter had dulled almost to silence. The sound of soup being ladled into cups was too loud. He tried to think how he had ended up here.

He had taken the job four years ago and had considered himself lucky to get it. Before that, he had been a ledgers clerk at a locomotive factory in Lincoln. That had been cold and horrible. The Home Office paid more and did not expect its employees to buy their own coal. But telegraphy never varied. It was as easy as writing, once you knew Morse Code, and he wasn't educated enough to advance much further. There were vague prospects of becoming an a.s.sistant senior clerk at some point this year. He had been pleased about that when he heard, then horrified to be pleased, because being pleased with something so boring meant that without noticing, at no particular point that he could see, he had shrunk to fit the job. He had never meant to be a telegraphist for four years.

But the fact was that you could not support a widow and two boys with orchestral work. After Annabel's husband had died he had sold the piano. He hadn't been able to go to concerts or opera for a good while, but gradually that wore off. Now, he bought a cheap ticket once every season or so. The part of himself he had amputated still twinged sometimes, but letting her go to a workhouse would have been worse than a twinge.