Julius and the Watchmaker (12 page)

We have not met yet, but I will require your assistance on the night of Tuesday 4th of July or in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Please wait for me at the Thames, near Paul's Wharf Pier. A Grackack will need sending back to his true home and I would be forever in your debt if you could convince me not to return to my new lodgings with the rogue, Jack Springheel. My grandfather will be in a state of agitation after an unfortunate misunderstanding, so I would also be most grateful if you would pay him a visit at Higgins' Bookshop at your earliest convenience to see that he is bearing up tolerably.

Yours in anticipation,

Julius Caesar Higgins

Care of Clements' Pawnbrokers,

Warwick Lane.

Julius perused his penmanship. Although he could read every word clearly, as if it were the King's English, he could see that the letters were anything but
a
's,
b
's and
c
's.
Cor, if Whacker O'Brynn could see you now, Higgins
.
Fluent in Tibetan and you haven't even studied a word of it.

He folded the paper carefully around the golden key, then wrote on the cover:

Please deliver to Julius Higgins in Warwick Lane on the evening of Monday 3rd of July. You will have no trouble locating me. I will be surrounded by a band of murderous urchins. Your intercession at that moment will be most appreciated.

That done, Julius looked towards the mouth of the cave and watched long gold-fringed clouds forming in the pale sky.
Well, Higgins, who would have thought you'd end up here?
Then another thought occurred to him. He picked up the note and scurried outside.

‘So, let me get this straight. I haven't met Mr Springheel yet? Crimper McCready hasn't tried to cut my ears off ? I didn't have that…that little misunderstanding with my grandfather?'

‘Precisely,' said the professor.

Julius let out a sigh of relief. It was the first bit of reassuring news he had heard in a while.

‘That's perfect then, I just have to go back, I mean forward and
not
do all the things I did and then—'

‘Not quite, Julius. I am afraid we will have to let all those unfortunate occurrences stand. We can't countenance any more interference with our current time line.'

‘But—'

‘We will simply have to time-jump into the future, to just after we left it, otherwise we would meet ourselves, would we not? We will go directly to Springheel's hideout, with you leading the way, switch off the infernal device that is causing the vortex, and retrieve Shelley's pocketwatch. There you have it—problem eliminated.'

‘Eliminated? You mean…?'

‘Bless you, Julius. No, nothing so drastic. No, our Guild, the Guild of Watchmakers that is, are not murderers. No, we will consider the matter carefully and we'll most probably end up banishing the fellow somewhere distant where he can do no more harm.'

‘Timbuktu, somewhere like that, young fella.'

‘But,' said the professor, turning abruptly and raising one finger in the air. ‘We are getting ahead of ourselves, gentlemen. Julius, do you have the note?'

‘Yes, Professor. Here it is.'

‘Thank you. I will have to beg your patience now, my boy, while I prepare a
doppelganger
to deliver it to—' the professor read Julius's directions—‘to Warwick Lane.'

‘Doppelganger?'

‘Yes, Julius. Mr Flynn will explain it all to you. I have a busy night ahead of me,' said the professor, walking towards the cave.

Julius looked at Mr Flynn. ‘Doppelganger?'

Millions of stars carpeted the vast sky. Julius and Mr Flynn sat by a small fire at the mouth of the cave and, inside, the professor sat cross-legged with his hands resting on his lap. In his open right palm lay the note wrapped around the golden key. He had been motionless for hours.

‘What's a doppelganger? Mr Flynn?' whispered Julius.

‘It's one of those things the Tibetan fellas do from time to time. They send an image of themselves somewhere else to do things for them. It comes in handy now and then.'

‘It does?'

‘It does. This way, the professor can go to a timeline without causing the disruption he would if he used his pocketwatch. You see, the professor is already in London when his doppelganger will be there, but it won't cause a
temporal coincidence event
because the second professor is not there actually or potentially.'

The professor began to make a humming sound. It seemed to be coming from the pit of his stomach. They both turned to look at him.

‘He's about to do it. Watch the note in his hand.'

Julius saw it gradually fading. In another few seconds it had vanished.

‘It's done now, Julius. He'll fall asleep now. It tires the poor old fella out, doing them doppelganger things. Time for some sleep for us too.'

They wrapped themselves up in blankets and bedded down by the fire.

Julius looked up at the stars.

‘How long does it take to learn to do that, Mr Flynn?' he whispered.

‘Lifetimes, young fella, lifetimes.'

The next morning arrived biting cold. Julius ran on the spot to get his blood flowing, while Mr Flynn built up the fire to prepare breakfast. The professor emerged from the cave. He breathed in deeply and stretched out his arms.

‘Good morning, gentlemen. Ready to do battle with evil time-criminals?'

‘We are indeed, Professor,' said Mr Flynn, as he put a pot of water on the fire to boil.

‘It's a simple plan. We time-jump back to London shortly
after
we left the Grackack London and make for Springheel's hideout, and there we put an end to his meddling once and for all. Julius, you can lead the way, and Danny, your pugilistic skills may be required—Springheel is not likely to give up without a fight.'

‘It'll be a pleasure, Professor. I'll give him a fat lip for Shelley,' said Mr Flynn cracking his knuckles.

After a breakfast of porridge made from indeterminable grains, the time-travellers held hands at the mouth of the cave. Julius's heart was pumping like a locomotive's pistons and his palms were sweating.

‘Don't worry about a thing, young fella,' whispered Mr Flynn. ‘Just remember to bend at the knees when you hit the cobblestones.'

The professor let go of Mr Flynn's hand momentarily to set the pocketwatch spinning and tap it. Julius took a deep breath. Blackness and silence fell for an instant and then, once again, Julius found himself careering through time and space.

The giant pocketwatch spun slowly as it hurtled past a sun and through the eye of a galaxy. The ticking boomed silently through the vacuum of space as the galaxy diminished into the distance. Then a star exploded like a firework, leaving a cloud of purple vapour ten light-years across. Julius looked at Mr Flynn miles way but still, impossibly, at arm's length and laughing as if he had just heard the best joke in the universe. The pocketwatch and its three travellers spun through the purple cloud, the journey taking thousands of years and a few seconds all at once.

This is the way to travel, Higgins. The only way.

CHAPTER 12

Thursday 6th July, 1837
5:54 AM

With a whoosh of air and a high-pitched yell, Julius hit the cobblestones and tumbled onto his back. Dawn was breaking over London, his London. Rubbing his bruised knee, he got to his feet and looked in vain for the dome of St Paul's above the rooftops. The pong of the Thames hit his nose with the force of a cricket bat.
There's no place like home is there, Higgins.

‘No time to lose, gentlemen,' said the professor, as he swung his cane and smoothed out the tips of his moustache with his fingers. ‘I must admit, this is one of my favourite manifestations.' He was a distinguished English gentleman in a grey frockcoat once more.

‘And it's good to be back in my broken down old hovel, too,' said Mr Flynn, straightening his waistcoat.

‘Lead on, MacDuff,' said the professor, tapping Julius on the shoulder.

Julius looked around to get his bearings. They were in one of the least-respectable lanes of Cheapside—grey walls and broken window panes on both sides, the muffled sound of a crying baby in a building close by, two men arguing inside a doorway. A small, thin dog stared at Julius with a hopeful look in its eyes.

‘This way,' Julius said, heading for the northern end of the lane. They came to a medium-sized street that was already filling up with people carrying and wheeling their goods to the various markets in the borough. Julius looked up at the street sign on the corner wall.

‘Earl Street. I know where we are. We can be in Warwick Lane in a few minutes if we hurry.'

Julius, the professor and Mr Flynn ran along Waters Lane and into Warwick Lane. The street was empty except for a group of small, bare-footed children standing across the road in front of Clements' pawnshop.

‘Slow up there, young fella,' said Mr Flynn. ‘Let's see what's going on before we steam in.'

They slowed to a casual walk and managed to come up behind the street children without being noticed. When Julius looked through the shop window he saw why the urchins were not displaying their usual animal vigilance. The items on display were moving. Julius peered over the lice-ridden heads to get a closer look. A figurine seemed to be dancing a polka and a set of marbles in a cigar case were jumping around like fleas in a frying pan.

In the window panes Julius could see the reflections of the urchins' faces—eyes and mouths open wide with astonishment. He recognised some of them; they were the very ones who had tried to extract money from him with menaces.

‘Ahem,' coughed the professor, to attract the urchins' attention. They spun around and twelve pairs of eyes weighed up the situation quicker than you could spit on a peeler's boot.

‘Oi,' said the girl-urchin, who had given the commands the last time she and Julius had met. ‘No looking at the dancing fings lest you've paid a duce apiece.'

‘A duce? What are ye talking about, girl? Surely it's a free show for all to see,' said Mr Flynn.

‘No it ain't. We're in charge 'ere. Clements told us to keep an eye on the place when 'im an' the toffy geezer went running off down the street. So we gets profits from any fing wot 'appens 'ere while we're in charge,' said the girl.

‘When did they leave, miss?' asked the professor.

‘That's information. That'll cost ya a shillin'.'

‘A shilling? I fear you do not comprehend the seriousness of the situation, little girl. The window display is the result of Springheel and his infernal contraption. He and Clements have caused a destabilisation in the space–time continuum resulting in this extreme oscillation of all atomic matter in the vicinity, namely this very building,' said the professor, placing his hand against the wall to feel the vibrations. ‘If I am not mistaken we will experience an
excessive oscillation event
in a matter of minutes unless we do something about it.'