“Why not meet there?” Mr. Kikin suggested.
“I second the motion!” exclaimed Mr. Threader.
“Because-” Daniel began. But then he heard a snatch of conversation from the top of the stairs. The torch-light trapezoid grew wider and moved sideways. A new shadow appeared in its center. The fifth and last member of the Clubb was making his way down stairs. Daniel gave him a few moments to get within earshot, then continued, loudly: “because we do not wish to draw attention to ourselves! If our Nemesis has employed a clock-maker, or indeed a maker of any sort of fine instrument, why, the knave’s workshop is likely within a musket shot of this Temple.”
“Some would call it a temple, some a mound of rubble in the middle of a swine-yard,” said Mr. Kikin, catching the eye of Mr. Threader and getting a warm look in return.
“Mound is too grand a word, sir. In English we say ‘bulge.’ ”
“Those who did, would thereby show a grievous want of Real Estate Acumen!” Daniel returned, “for of the Three Desiderata: location, location, and location, this ruin has all! The tide of London’s expansion is lapping at its foundations!”
“Are you the land-lord, Dr. Waterhouse?” inquired Mr. Threader, suddenly interested.
“I am looking after the property on behalf of a High Net Worth Individual,” returned Daniel, “who is keen to make this vale into a world-renowned center of Technologickal Arts.”
“How did this individual become aware of the ruin’s existence?”
“I told him, sir,” Daniel said, “and to anticipate your next question, I learnt of it from a fellow of my acquaintance, a very, very old chap, who had knowledge from a Knight Templar.”
“Then he must indeed be very old, as the Templars were wiped out four hundred years ago,” said Mr. Threader, sounding a bit irritated.
“A new building is contemplated?” asked Mr. Orney, as one man of commerce to another.
“Is already underway,” Daniel confided, “to include an arcade of shops and ateliers for makers of watches, and of instruments-not only musickal, but philosophickal.”
He was getting expectant stares, as if he had broken off in mid-sentence.
“Planispheres, heliostats, theodolites, and circumferentors, e.g.,” he tried. Nothing.
“If Longitude is found, I daresay, ’twill be found on this property!” he concluded.
All of this had been taken in by Henry Arlanc, the last to arrive. He was standing silently, and somewhat apart from the others.
“Right!” said Mr. Threader. “The second meeting of the Clubb for the Taking and Prosecution of the Party or Parties responsible for the Manufacture and Placement of the Infernal Engines lately Exploded at Crane Court, Orney’s Ship-yard, amp;c., is called to order.”
TO DANIEL, IN HIS YOUTH, a club had always been a stick for hitting things with.
In 1664, a Mr. Power, discoursing of barometers, had written, “The Difference of the Mercurial Cylinder may arise from the club and combination of all these causes joined together.”
This extended meaning of “club” had been taken clearly by Daniel and everyone else at the Royal Society, because many of them had lately been at universities where starvelings pooled pennies to buy food or, more often, drink. The slang for this was “to make a club.” Around this time, one often heard Mr. Pepys proposing to John Wilkins and others that they make a club for dinner, meaning exactly the same procedure, save with more money and better results.
During Daniel’s absence from London, Pepys’s merry improvisations had spread out across Time to become perpetual, while losing their freedom in Space by confining themselves to fixed quarters. The notion had struck Daniel as questionable, until Roger had finally lured him to the Kit-Cat Clubb. On entering that place Daniel had said, “Oh, why didn’t you say so!” for he had understood it immediately as a Routine Upgrade of the coffee-houses where everyone had used to pass the time of day twenty years ago-the chief difference being that only certain people were let in. This all but ruled out ear-biting, stab-wounds, and duels.
This Clubb was nothing at all like the Kit-Cat. Its purpose was altogether different, its members (except for Daniel) very unlike Roger’s crowd, its meeting-place even darker and more low-ceilinged.
But certain things about Clubbs were universal. “First order of business: the collection of Dues!” Mr. Threader proclaimed. He had a coin pre-positioned in a tiny pocket of his waistcoat, and now flipped it casually onto the stone lid of a twenty-ton coffin. Everyone did a double-take: it was a pound sterling, which was to say a silver coin, and very crisp-looking, too. Using it to pay Clubb dues was a bit like nonchalantly riding around Hyde Park on the back of a Unicorn.
Daniel threw in a Piece of Eight. Mr. Kikin paid with Dutch silver money. Mr. Orney tossed out a golden guinea. Henry Arlanc upended a purse and poured out half a pint of copper tokens. Nearly all of these had been given him beforehand by Daniel. The other members of the Clubb probably suspected as much.
Daniel had insisted that the Huguenot porter be admitted, because it was theoretically possible that he was an intended victim of the first Infernal Device. Mr. Threader had proposed that the dues be set high, as a way of keeping rabble such as Arlanc out. Orney had agreed for reasons strictly practicaclass="underline" it was expensive to hunt down and prosecute criminals. Kikin had gone along with any and all expenditures because it might help keep his head attached to his neck if he could show the Tsar he was sparing no expense to catch the men who’d burned his ship. So Daniel had ended up paying high dues, not only for himself but for Arlanc.
Mr. Threader opened a small wooden case lined with red velvet, took out a hand-scale, and began to weigh the Spanish and Dutch money against a calibrated brass weight, which, according to tiny but furious assertions graved on its face, was the Platonic ideal of what a pound sterling ought to weigh, as laid down some 150 years ago by Gresham. Mr. Orney took this as a signal to begin reading the minutes of the previous meeting, which had been held at Mr. Kikin’s town-house in Black Boy Alley a fortnight ago.
“With the Membership’s indulgence, I shall elide all that was to no purpose, and summarize all that was merely pedantic…” Orney began.
“Hear, hear!” said Daniel before Mr. Threader could object. He needn’t have worried. Mr. Threader had stuck his tongue out, and his eyes were nearly projecting from his head on stalks as he gauged the weight of Daniel’s Spanish silver.
“This leaves only two items worth mentioning: the interview with the unfortunate Watchman, and Dr. Waterhouse’s discourse on the mechanism. Taking these in order, we interrogated Mr. Pinewood, a Watchman who witnessed the explosion in Crane Court, and was hired, or in some way induced, by verbal representations from Mr. Threader, of a highly ambiguous and still hotly disputed nature…”
“Is all of that really in the minutes!?” said Mr. Threader, glancing up from his scale with a look of mock amazement.
“Believing that he would be compensated, Mr. Pinewood lit out after a sedan chair that had been seen following Mr. Threader and Dr. Waterhouse immediately prior to the explosion,” said Mr. Orney, looking satisfied that he had been able to get a rise out of Mr. Threader. “Mr. Pinewood informed us that he followed the chair eastwards on Fleet Street as far as the Fleet Bridge, where the two men bearing it stopped, set it down, turned on Mr. Pinewood, picked him up…”
“Avast, we know the story,” muttered Mr. Threader.
“…and flung him bodily into Fleet Ditch.”
Everyone swallowed.
“A collection was taken up for Mr. Pinewood’s boils, and prayers said for his other symptoms, some of which medical science has not even devised names for yet. Some contributed more, and prayed more reverently, than others.