Peering past pipes and four wide rotating pillars, Burton saw Trounce and Honesty gripping the arms of a very small person. Engineers were gathered around them, and Swinburne was dancing in front of the police officers and their captive, shrieking at the top of his voice.
“Tobias Threadneedle, my eye!” he screeched. “Liar! Brute! Traitor! Impostor!”
“What are you doing down here, Algy?” Burton asked as he and Lawless joined the group. “I thought you were working?”
“I found myself unable to write, Richard, so I came in search of inspiration, and what I found instead—” Swinburne raised his voice to a scream and pointed his finger, “—is the one and only Vincent Sneed—otherwise known as the Conk!”
Burton looked down at the short, wiry individual held in the grip of the two Scotland Yard men. He wasn't much bigger than a child, and owned a very unprepossessing stoat-like face, dominated by a perfectly huge nose. A ragged, nicotine-stained moustache concealed his lipless mouth. His thin black hair was long, greasy, and combed back over his narrow skull. He was pockmarked and sly-looking, and his beady little eyes—positioned almost on the sides of his gargantuan proboscis rather than to either side of it in the normal way—were flicking back and forth in a panicked manner.
“I bloody aren't!” he protested. “Me name's Threadneedle. Arsk 'im!” He nodded to a small boy standing nearby, a ragamuffin with sandy-blond hair.
Captain Lawless said, “And who are you, my lad?”
“Willy Cornish, sir,” the boy answered nervously.
Daniel Gooch stepped forward, his mechanical arms slowly undulating to either side of him. “They are the ship's funnel scrubbers, Captain.”
Willy Cornish nodded and pointed at the prisoner. “That's right, sir. And he's who he says he is—Tobias Threadneedle.”
Swinburne let loose a tremendous howl and hopped up and down like a madman. “Willy! You know perfectly well this is Sneed!”
Cornish shifted uncomfortably and wrung his hands. “No, Carrots,” he said, employing the nickname he'd given the poet during the time they'd spent together sweeping chimneys. “I know he looks like old Sneed, but he's Mr. Threadneedle, and he's all right, he is.”
“All right? He's a rogue! A bully! A snake in the grass!”
“I ain't none o' them things!” the captive cried out, struggling to free himself.
“Here, less of that!” Trounce snapped.
“I'll have the cuffs on you!” Honesty threatened.
“I ain't done nuffink!” the prisoner protested.
“You sabotaged the ship!” Swinburne shouted.
“I bloody didn't!”
“You bloody did!”
“I bloody didn't!”
“SHUT UP!” Lawless roared. “You—” he jabbed a finger at Swinburne, “—calm down and explain.”
“The explanation,” Swinburne answered, “is that while this hound may be calling himself Tobias Threadneedle, he is actually, and without doubt, a scurrilous rogue by the name of Vincent Sneed. I worked side by side with him the year before last and he treated me abominably. I cannot be mistaken. Look at that nose of his! How many men do you think there are walking around with such a perfectly enormous beak?”
“Oy!” the prisoner objected.
“But you say Mr. Swinburne is mistaken?” Lawless demanded of Cornish.
“Y-yes, sir,” the boy stuttered. “I kn-know Mr. Sneed, and this ain't him.”
Swinburne groaned and slapped a hand to his forehead. “Why, Willy? Why are you supporting this blackguard?”
“Stop calling me them bleedin' names, you damned rat!” the accused man cried out.
“Algy,” Burton said. “Even if this is Mr. Sneed—”
“It is!”
“—What makes you think it was he who sabotaged the ship?”
“Because he's a villain!”
“So your allegation is based on supposition rather than evidence?”
Swinburne sighed and muttered, “Yes, Richard. But isn't it enough that he's lying to us?”
Burton turned to Captain Lawless. “Is there a secure room available? I'd like to keep this man under guard while we get to the bottom of this.”
“Use the first of the class-two passenger cabins,” Lawless said, pointing toward the corridor they'd come through. “I have to get back to the bridge. I'll send the steward down with the key. Report to me when this is sorted out, please.”
With that, the captain gave a last glance at the prisoner then marched away.
Burton addressed his assistant: “Algy, where is Herbert?”
“Holed up in his cabin, working on a philosophical treatise.”
“Would you fetch him, please?”
The poet shifted his weight from one foot to the other, glowered at the big-nosed man, frowned at Willy Cornish, then nodded and followed after Lawless.
Burton positioned himself in front of the individual who called himself Tobias Threadneedle and said, “Did you take part in a riot at Speakers' Corner last summer?”
“No!” the man answered. He couldn't meet Burton's eyes, and kept raising his own to the ceiling, anxiously scanning the pipes and machinery above. The way he squirmed in Trounce and Honesty's grip suggested that he wasn't telling the truth.
“The two men holding you are police officers,” Burton revealed.
Trounce added, “And we won't hesitate to arrest you and deliver you to a Cairo gaol if you're what Mr. Swinburne says you are!”
“Egyptian prison,” Honesty murmured. “Very nasty. Foul places.”
“Oh please, Mother! I ain't done nuffink!” their captive wailed. “I'm just a bleedin' funnel scrubber!”
“Sneed was at the riot,” Burton stated. “As were these two fellows and myself. My assistant got into a scrap with him. None of us saw it, but our colleague, Mr. Spencer, did. He's on his way down now, and he'll either endorse Mr. Swinburne's assertion, or he won't. If you're Tobias Threadneedle, you have nothing to worry about. If you're Vincent Sneed, things are about to go very badly for you.”
The prisoner let out a keening whine of despair.
Burton turned to Willy Cornish.
“I've heard good things about you, young man. I hope you're not telling fibs. I would be very disappointed indeed.”
Willy burst into tears and buried his face in the crook of his arm.
Daniel Gooch approached Burton and said, in a low voice, “That bearing cradle, Sir Richard—I understand it appeared in your cabin under mysterious circumstances?”
“Yes.”
“It's this fellow's duty—” one of Gooch's mechanical arms gestured toward Threadneedle, “—to keep the pipes clear on that side of the ship. He could have opened the ventilation panel in the pipe and entered your quarters through it.”
“I see. Thank you, Mr. Gooch.”
A few tense minutes passed while they waited for Herbert Spencer's arrival. When the clockwork philosopher entered the room—clanking along beside Swinburne, and with Pox squatting on his head—Threadneedle's little eyes widened and he stuttered, “Wha-wha-what's that thing?”
“Tosspot!” Pox squawked.
“Herbert,” Burton said. “Have you seen this fellow before?”
The brass man stepped over to Threadneedle and nodded. “Yus, Boss. He were at the riot last summer. He got into a fight with Mr. Swinburne. He's Vincent Sneed.”
The prisoner groaned and slumped.
Doctor Quaint walked in, glanced curiously at the scene, and handed a key to Burton. “Second-class cabin number one,” he said.
“Thank you, Doctor.” Burton addressed the Yard men: “Let us secure Mr. Sneed, gentlemen.”
He led the way to the cabin, followed by the policemen and their prisoner.
Swinburne turned to Willy Cornish and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. “Why were you protecting him, Willy? Has he threatened you?”
Willy looked up, his eyes swimming in tears. “I can't say, Carrots. I would, but I just can't!”
Swinburne shook his head and chewed his bottom lip. “There's something very wrong about all of this,” he grumbled. “But how the blazes am I to get to the facts of the matter if you won't help?”