Secrets of the Dragon Tomb (6 page)

“Exactly. I want it back before you spoil it for me.”

We slipped in through the conservatory door, locking it firmly behind us, and doused the gas lamps in the drawing room.

I was about to turn to the stairs when a faint glow down the corridor caught my eye. Maybe it was the automatic servants still cleaning. Except it didn't look like candlelight, and it was coming from Papa's laboratory. I touched Putty's arm and stilled her.

“Wait here,” I whispered.

She followed me as I made my way down the corridor.

What if those men hadn't been alone? What if while we'd been chasing them through the forest, their accomplices had been continuing their work? They could be in there right now.

The heavy blood-oak door was fastened with four solid padlocks. The first had been levered free by brute force, but the other three were unlocked and hanging loose.

Maybe it was Papa. If he'd heard the noise, the first thing he would have done was check on his water abacus.

I eased the door open and crept down the stairs. Halfway down, where the stairs switched back, I crouched to peer into Papa's workshop.

If you're anything like me, you'll have seen pictures of mechanicians' workshops. All right, you probably won't have had a clue what you were looking at. Most mechanicians' workshops looked like something just exploded. They're full of weird brass contraptions, glass funnels, pipes, gauges, and steam engines perched on benches or standing against walls. I mean, you know they're supposed to be
something
, but for all you know, all those cogs, tubes, levers, chains, and springs might just be a device for hanging up socks. Or they might be a machine to shoot people at high speed down tunnels. Papa tried that one once, but only once. All I can say is, it's lucky I managed to stop Putty having the first go.

But if you thought those workshops were confusing, you haven't seen Papa's.

At first glance, Papa's workshop looked like what would be left if the workshops of half a dozen other mechanicians had been dropped into a single room and stirred madly. There were bits of machinery everywhere. There were contraptions held together by wire and set into polished mahogany, as well as discarded dials and pendulums, glass tubes bent in strange angles, shaped brass, cast-iron shafts, valves, and heaps of the finest cogs, springs, gears, and hinges.

Permeating it all was the bitter smell of hot oil and raw metal.

If you looked more closely, though, you'd realize that all those bits were actually part of dozens of incomprehensible devices that were just waiting for steam or spring power to set them whizzing into motion.

At the back of the workshop stood Papa's pride, the water abacus.

I didn't understand exactly how the water abacus worked. Much to Papa's disappointment, me and machines never really understood each other, but I'd picked up a little. It all started with a tank full of water that was pumped down through a series of pipes. These pipes were joined to all sorts of valves, switches, and miniature reservoirs. When Papa set the dials at the top, the water squirted through different pipes at different pressures. The switches would switch, changing the direction the water flowed, things would gurgle, water would rise and fall, and somehow, from all of this, the answer to some calculation would emerge.

Yeah, I didn't understand how, either.

Papa had invented the water abacus two years ago, and ever since, he had been hard at work, automating the input of the calculations and speeding up the flow of water, to increase the number of calculations that could be performed each second.

The gas lamps in the workshop were lit. Water flowed from the tank, through the pipes. And instead of Papa standing before the water abacus, there was Cousin Freddie.

“What on Mars are you doing?” I demanded, stomping down the last of the stairs, into the workshop.

Cousin Freddie jumped. “Ah-ha-ha. Cousin Edward. And Cousin Parthenia. Well, you see, there's a funny story there.” He looked around guiltily. “You see, I was sleeping upstairs and having this rather peculiar dream about … well … I'd best not say what it was about, when I awoke and heard noises downstairs. So I thought I'd better come down and have a look at what was going on.” He scratched his nose. “Didn't want to miss breakfast, and you do all have it so unfashionably early on Mars. A man who starts the day without a kipper is a man who will feel like a smoked fish until bedtime! So says Plato, or, er, someone. Anyway, when I got down, it was dark, and the automatic servants were all busy cleaning—dashed funny time to be doing it, if you ask me…”

“Freddie…” I warned.

“Yes. Right. Right. Well, the door to your papa's workshop was open. ‘Funny thing,' I thought. ‘I wonder if old Uncle Hugo is still up,' and seeing as I was awake, I thought I'd see if he wanted company. Anyway, when I got down here, it was quite empty and this confounded machine was gurgling away. I've been trying to get it to stop ever since.”

“Oh, honestly,” Putty said, pushing past me. “It really is quite easy, Cousin Freddie.”

“Wait!” I said, but as always, Putty ignored me. She nipped around the piles of half-finished inventions and tugged a lever at the side of the water abacus. With a last gurgle, it shut down and the dials clicked back into place.

“Ah. Good gracious,” Freddie said. “Well, well.”

I swore silently. Now we would never know what the water abacus had been set to do, and that was something I very much wanted to find out. Because I knew as sure as I knew my own name that the intruders hadn't opened the door to Papa's workshop.

Freddie had opened it. Freddie had set the machine running. And one way or another, I was going to find out why.

 

5

The Great Sir Titus Dane

It took me nearly half an hour to wake Papa and explain what had happened. By the time he'd stopped patting me on the head and vaguely calling me a “good fellow” and I'd persuaded him to send an automatic servant with a message to the local magistrate, I could have sworn the first glow of morning was seeping into the sky. I hadn't even had the chance to get my
Thrilling Martian Tales
back off Putty. I went to bed anyway. It didn't last long.

Before I realized it, Mama was calling through my door. “Edward! Where are you, child? It's almost dawn!”

“But not quite,” I mumbled into my pillow.

If I could have asked for one thing above all else, it would have been an extra hour or two of sleep to make up for what I'd lost. Well, that and another uninterrupted hour in bed with my copy of
Thrilling Martian Tales
, finally,
finally
finding out what had happened to poor old Captain Masters since I'd left him hanging there on the mountainside.

And a cup of really strong tea.

Some hope.

Today was Mama's garden party. It might not start until midday, but Mama wasn't leaving anything to chance. Even with hired laborers and the automatic servants hard at work, no one was staying in bed.

During the night, my muscles had seized up. I felt my face with my fingertips. My jaw was sore and so was one of my cheeks, but I couldn't feel any swelling. With luck, the bruises wouldn't show. I rolled out of bed with a whimper and pulled on my clothes. The worst part was my ribs. They were tender to the touch, and when I fastened my waistcoat, I had to grit my teeth against the pain.

I wiped my face with a wet flannel, tried to untangle my hair, then gave up.

The automatic servants were already preparing breakfast and carrying trays of food out to the lawn when I got downstairs. Maybe it was just me, but I thought the sun looked tired this morning.

The entrance hall was filled with flowers from Jane's hopeful suitors, as usual. The smell was overbearing. I covered my nose and mouth and hurried toward the breakfast room.

“Edward!”

Papa was approaching from the back of the house, his face creased in worry. He didn't look like he'd slept since I'd woken him. Maybe I shouldn't have told him about the intruders after all.

“What if they come back?” He ran his hands through his thick gray hair. “They are after my water abacus. I knew this would happen!”

“That's why you called for the magistrate,” I said. “I'm sure he's sending guards.”

It had been the only way to protect the family. Putty and I wouldn't be so lucky against the intruders again.

“Guards? Yes, of course. But there's something even more important.”

“There is?” I eyed him suspiciously. This wasn't good.

“We shall have to cancel the garden party.”

I blinked. That bang on the head last night must have scrambled my brains, because I was sure he'd said we should cancel the party. I peered at him. “Did you say cancel it?”

He nodded. “We can't possibly allow strangers on the grounds. Not now.”

“Cancel it,” I said again. Mama had been planning it all year. She had almost bankrupted us with it. Olivia had been in tears over the household accounts, trying to make it all add up.

Papa looked shifty. “Yes. So, perhaps you'd be good enough to inform your mother, while I, er, inspect the workshop.” He backed away. “There's a good lad.”

I stared after him. Break the news to Mama? Did he think I was mad?

Perhaps I could persuade Putty to tell her for me.

I had just started up the stairs to look for Putty when the door knocker sounded, twice. The sound echoed through the house. I froze with my foot in the air. On the landing above, the noise of Mama and my sisters abruptly ceased. The sun had hardly risen, and someone was knocking on the front door. No respectable visitor would dream of calling this early.

The ro-butler trundled past me.

I heard the door open, and saw the spill of light down the corridor from the entrance hall, and the long shadows cast across the floor by the ro-butler and the visitor. Footsteps sounded as the ro-butler showed the visitor into the drawing room. A second later, the ro-butler emerged.

“Sir Titus Dane,” he announced in his echoey voice.

There was a gasp from the landing above, and everything erupted into chaos. Feet rushed about, Mama issued commands, and then all three of my sisters cascaded down the stairs, drawn into Mama's wake. Mama looked flushed and wild-eyed, and Jane was almost swaying with excitement. Putty trailed behind. There was no sign of Cousin Freddie.

The whole torrent of excitement washed around me, and I was caught up by them.

Mama cast me a glance. “Straighten your cravat, Edward,” she commanded. “And my goodness, what has happened to your hair? Oh dear, this is a disaster! Why could he not have let us know he was coming? We are all in such a state.”

As far as I could tell, we were all dressed much as normal—except Putty, of course, and Putty was never dressed normally. What else could any visitor expect this early? He was lucky we weren't all in our nightclothes.

Papa had vanished into his workshop—sometimes Papa was far cleverer than me—but Mama didn't seem to notice. She swept toward the drawing room, only pausing to pinch her cheeks, to add an unnecessary hint of color to her skin.

The visitor was much taller than Papa or Freddie. He had great, broad shoulders, big hands, and wavy hair that was starting to turn gray. He'd been sitting by the fireplace, but he stood as we entered, and bowed smoothly. Mama, Jane, and Olivia curtseyed in response. Putty bowed, just as I did, and I tried not to roll my eyes.

“Sir Titus,” Mama said. “You do us an immense honor. It's been such a long time.”

Sir Titus smiled. “Far too long, madam.” His voice was deep.

Mama looked on the point of fainting. “May I introduce my children, Sir Titus? Jane, my oldest, Olivia, Edward, and”—she threw a despairing glance at Putty—“Parthenia.”

“Delighted,” Sir Titus said, and swept us all with his gaze. There was something I didn't like about his look. He seemed to be laughing at us. Jane and Mama didn't seem to share my opinion, though. Both almost swooned.

Mama, Jane, and Olivia seated themselves on a chaise longue opposite Sir Titus. Sir Titus lowered himself elegantly onto his chair, and Putty and I sat together.

“I had hoped,” Sir Titus said, “to make the acquaintance of your husband, madam. Mr. Sullivan's fame has spread across all of Mars, and Earth besides. His inventions have changed the face of our worlds. Is he at home?”

“At work,” Mama lied smoothly. “His business has detained him, I fear. He is a very busy man.”

Well, he was certainly busy, but I couldn't imagine he'd be thinking about the part of the business that actually made him any money. Right now, he'd be in the depths of his water abacus, oblivious to anything except its pipes and switches and dials.

“A shame,” Sir Titus said with a quick smile. “It would have been an honor to tell people that I had met the famous Mr. Sullivan.”