Chapter 15 #2
“Come at me again, and you’re dead men,” snarled the earl, aware that blood was soaking the sleeve of his slashed coat.
The knife-wielding varlet tried to find his dropped weapon in the churned-up mud, but Wrexford kicked it away.
However, on seeing the second man drop his blade and begin pawing at his bulging pocket, he decided discretion was the better part of valor.
A quick second strike with his stick knocked the first man unconscious, and then he set off at a dead run.
“That be the place,” whispered Scratch, pointing to a three-story brick and stone building situated in the middle of the side street. “Ye want fer me to stay wid ye and keep watch?”
“Naw.” Raven punctuated his answer by handing over an extra half-crown in payment. “You’ve done enuff fer the night.” Though he didn’t expect trouble, he didn’t wish to put their friend in any danger.
As the urchin melted away into the darkness, the three Weasels crept across the street and took cover beneath the shallow portico that sheltered the main set of double doors.
Peregrine was quick to examine the imposing steel mechanism bolted on the dark oak.
“It’s one of those fiendishly clever locks made by the late Joseph Bramah, who was nearly as famous as Henry Maudslay for his skills in mechanical engineering,” he whispered as Raven and Hawk came over to join him. “I doubt that I’ll be able to open it with my tools.”
“Let’s have a look around and see if there’s an easier way in,” replied Raven after studying the lock from several angles. “The fact that the building is this well guarded seems to confirm it’s no ordinary storage place.”
“Oiy!” Hawk had already moved off to assess the possibilities. “What about up there?” He pointed at a narrow window placed just below the ridgeline of the peaked roof. “It’s a ventilation opening for the attic crawl space, but you should be able to squeeze through it.”
“I brought along a grappling hook and rope.” Peregrine slipped off his rucksack and pulled out the two items.
Raven gazed up and down the street. All of the buildings appeared locked up tight for the night, with nary a flicker of light disturbing the darkness. After testing the knot on the multi-pronged hook and slipping off his own rucksack, he backed up and signaled for Peregrine to give it a heave.
Thwack! It hit the roof, scrabbled across the slates—and fell back to the ground.
“Aim a little more to the left,” counseled Raven.
The second try proved more successful, the iron prongs sliding for an instant but then hooking into the gaps between stone tiles.
Both Raven and Peregrine tugged down hard, testing its hold.
“It will take my weight,” said Raven, knotting the end of the rope around his waist and then reaching up for a handhold on the rough hemp to start his climb.
“Wait by the door. Wrex explained to me that puzzle locks have an interior lever to open and then reset the locking mechanism. So, with luck, we’ll be inside shortly. ”
Up, up, he rose, using his feet to help propel his ascent.
“So far, so good,” whispered Hawk after checking the surroundings.
Bracing himself on the tiny ledge, Raven worked his knife blade between the sash and the molding. Jiggle-jiggle. The latch released, and in the next instant he wriggled headfirst through the opening.
Hawk and Peregrine gathered up the two rucksacks. After several minutes, the scrape and click of metal sounded from inside, and one of the doors swung up a crack.
“Hurry and light the candle lanterns,” urged Raven as he quickly shut them safely inside. “I don’t want to linger here any longer than necessary.”
“Holy hell,” whispered Peregrine once the small flames flickered to life. He was staring at the monstrous silhouette of a flywheel cast onto the far wall by the candlelight. Next to it was a towering structure made of interlaced bars.
The actual machinery wasn’t quite so imposing.
Still, Raven approached it gingerly, as if the wheel might suddenly start spinning like a whirling dervish.
“It looks like some sort of printing press.” He craned his neck.
“But I can’t tell how the components work …
” After a moment, he turned. “But never mind that now. Let’s look around for what else is here, so that we can give as complete a report as possible to Wrex and m’lady. ”
Hawk pulled a small sketchbook and pencil from his coat pocket. “I’ll make a few drawings while you two compile an inventory.”
They worked in hurried silence. Peregrine had brought along a thin metal pry bar, which allowed him and Raven to lift one of the nailed boards on each of the unopened wooden crates in order to examine the contents.
“This way,” explained Peregrine, “we can tap the board back in place using the same nail holes and leave no sign of tampering.”
“It will take at least another hour to check all these crates,” observed Hawk, as he moved around the large flywheel press, his attention caught by a flash of gold as Peregrine shifted his lantern.
“No need to open any more of them,” decided Raven. “We’ve seen enough to know this is all for some sort of printing—”
“Oiy!” Hawk dropped to a crouch and waved a hand. “Bring the light closer.”
The lantern beams crisscrossed for an instant before focusing on the spot indicated.
“What’s a rose engine lathe?” asked Hawk after reading the lettering inscribed on the nameplate attached to the mahogany base of the ornate brass machine.
“I heard an engineering friend of Mr. Hedley explain it to him the last time I visited his workshop at the Royal Institution,” piped up Peregrine.
“It’s a specialized type of lathe designed to cut symmetrical geometric patterns into metal.
I didn’t understand all the technical details, but apparently the rocking head and rotating spindle can create mathematical roulette curves known as hypho …
hypho-somethings and epitro-somethings. And that allows the machine to create rosette designs, which no other decorative lathe can do. ”
“Mr. Sheffield was telling Lady Cordelia about attending a demonstration of a geometric lathe the other day,” said Raven, his voice betraying a note of excitement. “He’s been appointed to a committee that’s investigating ways to print banknotes that can’t be counterfeited.”
“You think Mr. MacArthur …” began Peregrine.
Raven looked up from the rose engine lathe and took a long moment to survey the shadowed crates and black-as-Hades iron machinery.
“Speculation has only gotten me into trouble lately,” he muttered. “We should return home and pass on the information we’ve gathered to Wrex—and let him decide on the next move.”