Infernal Devices - KW Jeter [24]
Perhaps, I reasoned, he had taken it upon himself to begin work upon the device left by the Brown Leather Man, and was too intent on his labours to respond to my voice. Or some other explanation accounted for the stillness; so I hoped as I made my way, with some trepidation, down the hallway.
I found in the workroom, not Creff, but utter chaos. The bench had been swept clean of all the projects and devices, in various stages of disassembly and reassembly, that had been ranged upon it. Only the burning lamp remained to cast its light over the tools and bits of intricate machinery scattered over the stone floor. As well, all of my father's materials, the great mass of gears, clock frameworks, lifeless mannikins, and other remnants of his fecund career, had been pulled away from the workroom's walls and gone through. Hands moving with burglars' haste had left the pieces in greater disorder than that into which I had let them lapse. Indeed, there was hardly a space remaining to set a foot on the wreckage-strewn floor.
Little caring to see if anything of value had been taken, I turned and ran back to the stairway, calling Creff's name once again. This time, to my ear came a muffled thumping from the floor above.
At the doorway of his small sleeping quarters, I found my assistant, trussed and gagged. He had managed to wriggle one foot from his bonds and thus give the percussive. signal that led me to him. I pulled the wadded handkerchief – a lady's, from the lace and scent on it from his mouth, as it seemed his reddened face was on the point of bursting from the attempt to vent his words.
"It was them!" Creff strained to look around at me as I loosened the knotted cords at his wrists. "Those murdering swine – they came back!"
"That fellow Scape?" I said.
"The very one, the scoundrel." He began rubbing the circulation back into his bloodless hands before turning his attention to the bonds at his ankles. "And the fine lady that was with him – she were the worse of them; vicious as a cat, she were."
I stood up, helping Creff to rise as well, with my hand at his elbow. "How did they get in?"
"No idea, sir; very clever, they were. I heard nary a thing, until a great crashing blow on my skull – I'm surprised my brains aren't scattered all over the floor, they struck me so cruel – and while things were all a swimming about me, I saw their faces looking into mine, and her laughing as she trussed me up like a goose. A fine lady, that one!"
The mystery of their entrance was soon cleared away. Leaving Creff in his room to await the restoration of strength in his wobbly legs, I made a tour of the premises. I soon found the scullery window jemmied open expertly, it seemed, from the small amount of damage to the surrounding wooden frame – and two pairs of footprints, dark with the alley's muck, across to the door.
In the wreckage of the workroom, it was difficult to ascertain if anything of value had been taken. I knew, however, what had been the likely intent of their search. Clearing away a toppled clock frame and gears strewn like brass coins, I uncovered my father's secret cache. Lifting the stone that served as its unobtrusive lid, I peered into its depths: the mahogany casket was still there. I tilted back the wooden lid: the device that my father had built, and that the Brown Leather Man had brought to me for repair, lay inside. The raid on my shop had been unsuccessful.
Kneeling on the cold floor of the workroom, gazing down at the intricate machinery in the hole as if it were some faery gold newly unearthed, yet without seeing it as my own thoughts moved in their courses, I contemplated this latest event. The proper course of action, I knew full well, would be to hail the nearest constable in the street and report the attack on my servant and the burglary attempted, if not consummated – on my shop and stock.