once his choice of words. What in the world would the man make of his desire for satisfaction? A challenge, perhaps, to a duel? A coarse reference to satisfied lusts?
“Satisfaction, sir?”
“That’s correct,” said St. Ives, brassing it out. “Not to put too fine a point on it, it was suggested to me that you could put me in the way of, shall we say, a particular machine.”
“Machine, sir?” The man was maddening. With a suspicion that at once became certainty, St. Ives understood that he was being had on, either by the cabbie or by this leering, mule-faced man, whose chin appeared to have been yanked double with a tongs. The man stood silent, peering at St. Ives through the half-shut door.
“Perhaps you’re unaware, my good fellow, to whom you speak” Silence followed this. “I have certain… desires, shall we say, involving mechanical apparatus. Do you grasp my meaning?” St. Ives squinted at him, losing his monocle in the process. It clanked against a coat button on his chest. He shoved at his beard.
“Ah,” said the suddenly voluble man in the doorway. “If you’ll use the alley door next time. Wait a moment.” The door eased shut. Footsteps receded. The door once again swung open and the butler handed out a parcel. St. Ives took it, and opened it unable to think of anything else to do, and found himself possessed of an eight-hour clock sporting a pair of iron gargoyles on either side of a cracked oval glass.
“I’m not,” began St. Ives, when he was struck from behind and shouldered into the street. An old man in a cloak ascended the stairs, brushed past the butler and disappeared growling into the recesses of the house. The door slammed shut.
Damn me, thought St. Ives, staring first at the clock, then at the house. He began once again to ascend the stairs, but was struck halfway up with a sudden fit of inspiration. He turned, tucked the broken clock under his arm, fixed his monocle in his eye, and set out down the road, determined to give up his quest for the moment and to seek out a clock-maker instead. In his haste he nearly collided with a round, eyepatched man tapping along with a stick in the opposite direction.
“Sorry,” St. Ives mumbled.
“S’nothing,” came the reply, and in moments both had turned their respective corners, two ships passing, as it were, in the afternoon.
T he portly man tapped along, highly satisfied with the day’s adventure. He entered Rupert Street, Soho, and disappeared into the open doorway of the Bohemian Cigar Divan, patting his pockets absentmindedly as if searching for a cigar.
FOUR
VILLAINIES
W illis Pule admired himself in the window of a bun shop on King Street. His was an intelligent face, uncoarsened by sunlight or wind and with a broad forehead that bespoke a substantial cranium. His complexion, it was true, was marred by an insidious acne, one that beggared all efforts to eradicate it. Pumice, lye, alcohol baths, nothing had diminished it. He’d abstained from eating aggravating foodstuffs, to no effect at all. The red lump on his cheek shone as if it were polished. He should have powdered it, but he sweated so fearfully that the powder might simply have dribbled away.
He pried his eyes away from his skin and regarded for a moment his profile. He’d seen the dusty storage rooms of European libraries thought to be fables by the common breed of historian, and he’d knowledge of alchemy that the likes of Ignacio Narbondo hadn’t dreamed of.
It was during his studies that he first learned of the existence of the homunculus. References to it and to its craft dated into antiquity, but were tiresomely sporadic and vague, linked by the most tenuous threads of pale suggestion until its sudden appearance in London some hundred years ago. The bottle imp, maligned by the dying sea captain whose log narrated the grim story of his own decline into madness and death, was without doubt the same creature sold some few years later to Joanna
“Satisfaction, sir?”
“That’s correct,” said St. Ives, brassing it out. “Not to put too fine a point on it, it was suggested to me that you could put me in the way of, shall we say, a particular machine.”
“Machine, sir?” The man was maddening. With a suspicion that at once became certainty, St. Ives understood that he was being had on, either by the cabbie or by this leering, mule-faced man, whose chin appeared to have been yanked double with a tongs. The man stood silent, peering at St. Ives through the half-shut door.
“Perhaps you’re unaware, my good fellow, to whom you speak” Silence followed this. “I have certain… desires, shall we say, involving mechanical apparatus. Do you grasp my meaning?” St. Ives squinted at him, losing his monocle in the process. It clanked against a coat button on his chest. He shoved at his beard.
“Ah,” said the suddenly voluble man in the doorway. “If you’ll use the alley door next time. Wait a moment.” The door eased shut. Footsteps receded. The door once again swung open and the butler handed out a parcel. St. Ives took it, and opened it unable to think of anything else to do, and found himself possessed of an eight-hour clock sporting a pair of iron gargoyles on either side of a cracked oval glass.
“I’m not,” began St. Ives, when he was struck from behind and shouldered into the street. An old man in a cloak ascended the stairs, brushed past the butler and disappeared growling into the recesses of the house. The door slammed shut.
Damn me, thought St. Ives, staring first at the clock, then at the house. He began once again to ascend the stairs, but was struck halfway up with a sudden fit of inspiration. He turned, tucked the broken clock under his arm, fixed his monocle in his eye, and set out down the road, determined to give up his quest for the moment and to seek out a clock-maker instead. In his haste he nearly collided with a round, eyepatched man tapping along with a stick in the opposite direction.
“Sorry,” St. Ives mumbled.
“S’nothing,” came the reply, and in moments both had turned their respective corners, two ships passing, as it were, in the afternoon.
T he portly man tapped along, highly satisfied with the day’s adventure. He entered Rupert Street, Soho, and disappeared into the open doorway of the Bohemian Cigar Divan, patting his pockets absentmindedly as if searching for a cigar.
FOUR
VILLAINIES
W illis Pule admired himself in the window of a bun shop on King Street. His was an intelligent face, uncoarsened by sunlight or wind and with a broad forehead that bespoke a substantial cranium. His complexion, it was true, was marred by an insidious acne, one that beggared all efforts to eradicate it. Pumice, lye, alcohol baths, nothing had diminished it. He’d abstained from eating aggravating foodstuffs, to no effect at all. The red lump on his cheek shone as if it were polished. He should have powdered it, but he sweated so fearfully that the powder might simply have dribbled away.
He pried his eyes away from his skin and regarded for a moment his profile. He’d seen the dusty storage rooms of European libraries thought to be fables by the common breed of historian, and he’d knowledge of alchemy that the likes of Ignacio Narbondo hadn’t dreamed of.
It was during his studies that he first learned of the existence of the homunculus. References to it and to its craft dated into antiquity, but were tiresomely sporadic and vague, linked by the most tenuous threads of pale suggestion until its sudden appearance in London some hundred years ago. The bottle imp, maligned by the dying sea captain whose log narrated the grim story of his own decline into madness and death, was without doubt the same creature sold some few years later to Joanna
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