The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

PART ONE

ONE

LONDON, NOVEMBER 1883

The Home Office telegraphy department always smelled of tea. The source was one packet of Lipton’s at the back of Nathaniel Steepleton’s desk drawer. Before the widespread use of the electric telegraph, the office had been a broom cupboard. Thaniel had heard more than once that its failure to expand was a sign of the Home Secretary’s continuing mistrust of naval inventions, but even if that wasn’t the case, the departmental budget had never stretched to the replacement of the original carpet, which liked to keep the ghosts of old smells. Besides Thaniel’s modern tea, there was cleaning salt and hessian, and sometimes varnish, though nobody had varnished anything there for years. Now, instead of brooms and brushes, there were twelve telegraphs lined up on a long desk. Three to an operator during the day, each wired to separate places within and without Whitehall, and labelled accordingly in the thin handwriting of a forgotten clerk.

Tonight all twelve machines were silent. Between six and midnight, one operator stayed in the office to catch urgent messages, but after working at Whitehall for three years, Thaniel had never seen anything come through after eight. Once, there had been a strange, meaningless percussion from the Foreign Office, but that had been an accident: somebody had sat on the machine at the other end of the wire. Sat and bounced. He had taken care not to ask about it.

Thaniel shifted stiffly and turned himself to the left of his chair rather than the right, and slid his book along the desk. The wires from the telegraphs were threaded through holes in the desk and then down into the floor, leaving all twelve trailing just where the knees of the operators should have been. The senior clerk liked to complain that sitting sideways made them look like society girls learning to ride, but he complained more if a wire snapped: they were expensive to replace. From the telegraphy room, they ran down through the building and spidered out all over Westminster. One went across the wall to the Foreign Office, one to the telegraph room at the Houses of Parliament. Two joined the clusters of wires strung along the street until they reached the post office headquarters at St Martin’s Le Grand. The others wired direct to the Home Secretary’s own house, Scotland Yard, the India Office, the Admiralty, and other sub-departments. Some of them were pointless because it would have been faster to lean out of the main office window and shout, but the senior clerk said that would have been ungentlemanly.

Thaniel’s watch ticked around to quarter past ten with its crooked minute hand that always stuck a bit over the twelve. Tea time. He saved tea for the nights. It had been dark since late afternoon and now, the office was so cold that his breath was showing and there was condensation on the brass telegraph keys. Having something hot to look forward to was important. He took out the Lipton’s, put the box diagonally in his cup and yesterday’s Illustrated London News under his elbow, and made his way to the iron staircase.

As he went down, it clanged in a bright yellow D sharp. He couldn’t say why D sharp was yellow. Other notes had their own colours. It had been useful when he still played the piano because whenever he went wrong, the sound turned brown. This sound-seeing was something he had always kept to himself. Yellow stairs made him sound mad and, contrary to the opinions of the Illustrated News, it was frowned upon for Her Majesty’s Government to employ the demonstrably insane.

The big stove in the canteen was never cold, the embers of old fires having no time to die completely between the civil service’s late evenings and early mornings. When he stirred over the coals, they came to life with a shimmer. He stood with the small of his back against a table while he waited for the water to boil, watching his own warped reflection in the bronze kettle. It made him look much warmer than his real colours, which were mainly grey.

The newspaper crackled in the deep quiet when he opened it. He had hoped for some kind of interesting military cock-up, but there was only an article about Mr Parnell’s latest speech in Parliament. He tilted his nose down into his scarf. With a bit of effort he could stretch out tea-making into fifteen minutes, which was an appreciable chip out of one of the eight hours he had left, but there wasn’t much to be done about the other seven. It was easier when his book wasn’t boring and when the newspapers had something better to do than look askance at Irish pushings for independence, as though Clan na Gael had not spent the last few years throwing bombs into the windows of government buildings.

He flicked through the rest of the paper. There was an advertisement for The Sorcerer at the Savoy. He had seen it, but the idea of going again made him feel brighter.

The kettle whistled. He poured his tea, slowly, and took it back up the yellow steps toward the isolated light of the telegraphy office lamp, cup held close to his breastbone.

One of the telegraphs was clicking.

He leaned in, only curious at first, until he saw it was the machine for Great Scotland Yard and lurched to catch the end of the transcript paper. It almost always scrunched itself up after three inches. It creaked as it threatened to crush the paper, but yielded when he pulled. The newest dots and dashes of code came out shakily, in old man’s handwriting.

Fenians— left me a note promising that—

The rest was still ticking through the clockwork, making little skittering stars through the gloomy room. He recognised the style of the operator before long. Superintendent Williamson coded in the same hesitant way in which he spoke. As it came through, the rest of the message was jerky and full of pauses.

—they will detonate bombs in all p—ublic buildings on— May 30, 1884. Six months from today. Williamson.

Thaniel pulled the machine toward him by the key.

This is Steepleton at the HO. Please confirm last message.

He had to wait a long time for the reply.

Just found— note on my desk. Bomb threat. Promises to— blow me off my stool. Signed Clan na Gael.

He stood still, bent over the telegraph. Williamson sent his own telegrams, and when he knew he was speaking to a familiar operator, he signed himself Dolly, as if they were all part of the same gentlemen’s club.

Are you all right? Thaniel asked.

Yes. A long silence. Must admit— a bit shaken. Going home.

You can’t go by yourself.

They won’t — do anything. If they say bombs in May – there will be bombs in May. It’s— Clan na Gael. They don’t bugger about lurking with cricket bats.

But why tell you now? Might be a trick to make you leave the office at a certain time.

No, no. To make us— afraid. They want Whitehall to know the day is coming. If enough politicians fear for their lives, they will listen better to Irish demands. They said ‘public buildings’. It won’t just be a matter of steering clear of Parliament for a day. They’re not interested in me. Honestly, I— know these people. I’ve locked up enough of them.

Careful then, Thaniel tapped grudgingly.

Thank you.

While the sounder was still clicking out the superintendent’s last word, Thaniel tore off the transcript and clipped through the dark corridor to a door at the far end, under which firelight bled. He knocked, then opened it. Inside, the senior clerk looked up and scowled.

‘I’m not here. This had better be important.’

‘It’s a message from the Yard.’

The senior clerk snatched it from him. The room was his office, and he had been reading in the deep armchair by the fire, his collar and tie abandoned on the floor. It was the same every night. The senior clerk claimed that he stayed because his wife snored, but Thaniel was starting to think that she must have forgotten about him by now and changed the locks. Once he had read the note, he nodded.

‘All right. You can go home. I’d better tell the Home Secretary.’

Thaniel nodded and left, quickly. He had never been told to leave early before, not even when he was ill. As he collected his coat and hat, he heard raised voices at the end of the corridor.

He lived in a boarding house just north of Millbank Prison, so close to the Thames that the cellar flooded every autumn. It was an eerie walk from Whitehall at night. Under the gas lamps, mist pawed at the windows of the closed shops, which became steadily shabbier nearer home. It was such a smooth ruination that he could have been walking forward through time, watching the same buildings age five years with every step, all still as a museum. But he was glad to be out of the office. The Home Office was the largest public building in London. It would be one of the targets in May. He turned his head aside as if he could avoid the thought, and pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. Last March, some Irishmen had tried to throw a bomb in through a ground-floor window. They had missed and managed only to blow up some bicycles in the street outside, but in the telegraphy office, the bang had made the floor jump. But they hadn’t been Clan na Gael, only a few angry boys with a bit of stolen dynamite.

The local beggar was sleeping under the boarding house’s wide porch.

‘Evening, George.’

‘Gngh,’ said George.

Inside, Thaniel climbed the wooden stairs as quietly as he could, because the walls were thin. His room was on the third floor, on the river side. Although the boarding house looked bleak from outside – the damp and the fog had streaked the outer walls with mildew – it was much better in. The rooms were plain and neat, each with a bed, a stove, and a plumbed sink. By rule of the landlady, the boarders were all single men, and given a bed and one meal a day for the flat annual cost of fifty pounds. Very much the same, in fact, as the inmates of the prison next door. He felt bitter about that sometimes. He had meant to do better in life than a prisoner. At the top of the steps, he saw that his door was already ajar.

He stopped, listening. He had nothing worth stealing, although at first glance, the locked box under his bed looked valuable. A burglar wasn’t to know that it was full of sheet music he hadn’t touched for years.

He stopped breathing so that he could hear properly. Everything was silent, but somebody else could have been holding his breath inside. After standing for a long time, he pushed the door open with his fingertips and stood sharply back. No one came out. Leaving the door open for the light, he snatched a match from the dresser and struck it against the wall. While he held the match to the lamp wick, the back of his neck pricked and burned with the certainty that somebody was about to shove past him.

When the lamp caught, the room was empty.

He stood holding the burned-down match, his back against the wall. Nothing was out of place. The match head crumbled off and hit the linoleum with a tap, leaving a smudge of black dust. He looked under the bed. The box of music was undisturbed. So were the savings he kept under the loose floorboard for his sister. It was only after he had set the floorboard back that he noticed the kettle was steaming. He put his fingertips against the side. It was hot, and when he opened the stove door, the coals were dusky red.

The crockery on the worktop was gone. He paused over that. It took a desperate burglar to steal unwashed dishes. He opened the cupboard to see if they had taken the cutlery too, and found the missing plates and bowls stacked inside. They were still warm. He left them and searched everything again. Nothing was missing, or nothing that he remembered to miss. Eventually he went back downstairs, perplexed. The cold outside felt sharper than it had a few minutes ago. As he pushed open the door, it rushed in at him, and he went out with his arms crossed tight. George was still asleep on the porch.

‘George! George,’ he said, giving him a shake and holding his breath. The old man smelled of unwashed clothes and animal fur. ‘My flat’s been burgled. Was it you?’

‘You haven’t got anything anyone would want to steal,’ George growled, with an authority that Thaniel decided not to question just for the moment.

‘Did you see anyone?’

‘I might have.’

‘I … ’ Thaniel went through his pockets. ‘I’ve got four pence and an elastic band.’

George sighed and sat up in his nest of grimy blankets to take the coins. From somewhere within the folds, his ferret squeaked. ‘I didn’t properly see, did I? I was asleep. Or I was trying.’

‘So you saw … ’

‘Pair of boots,’ he said.

‘I see,’ said Thaniel. George had been middle-aged when time began, and however annoying he was, certain allowances had to be made. ‘But lots of people live here.’

George shot him an irritable look. ‘If you spent all day down here on the ground, you’d know everyone’s boots, and none of you have got brown ones.’

Thaniel had not met most of his neighbours, but he was inclined to believe him. As far as he understood, they were all clerks of some kind; like him, they were all members of the crowd of black coats and black hats that swamped London for half an hour every morning and evening. Without meaning to, he looked down at his own black shoes. They were elderly but well polished.

‘Anything else?’ he said.

‘Christ, what’d he take that was so important?’

‘Nothing.’

George hissed his breath out between his teeth. ‘What do you care, then? It’s late. Some of us want to get some sleep before the constable turfs us out at the crack of dawn.’

‘Oh, don’t whine. You come back forty seconds after he’s gone. Mystery person breaks into my flat, does the washing up and takes nothing. I’d like to know why.’

‘Sure it wasn’t your mother?’

‘Yes.’

George sighed. ‘Small brown boots. Foreign writing on the heel. Maybe a boy.’

‘I want my four pence back.’

‘Bugger off,’ George yawned, and lay back down again.

Thaniel went out on to the empty street with a half-formed hope of seeing a boy in brown boots somewhere up ahead. The ground shook as a late train passed underneath, sending up a cloud of steam through the grating in the pavement. Less quickly, he turned back inside. Taken twice in a row, the three flights of steps made his thighs ache.

Back in his room, he flicked open the door of the stove again. He sat down on the edge of the bed with his coat still on and held his hands toward the coals. A dark shape just beside him caught his eye. He stiffened because at first he thought it was a mouse, but it wasn’t moving. It was a velvet box, tied with a white ribbon. He had never seen it before. He picked it up. It was heavy. On the ribbon was a circular label, etched with leaf patterns. In an angular, calligraphic hand it read: ‘To Mr Steepleton’. He pulled off the ribbon and opened the box. The hinge was stiff but did not squeak. Inside was a pocket watch.

Slowly, he lifted it out. It was made of a rosy gold he hadn’t seen before. The chain slithered gently after it, the links all smoothed flawless, without the slightest hairline space or ripple of solder to show where they had been joined. He wound it through his fingers until the clasp at the end tapped against his cufflink. The catch would not open when he pressed it. He held it to his ear, but the clockwork was silent and the spindle refused to wind. Somewhere in its workings, though, a few cogs must have been alive, because despite the dank cold, the case was warm.

‘It’s your birthday,’ he said suddenly to the empty room, and sagged, feeling stupid. Annabel must have come. She knew his address from his letters and he had sent her a key for emergencies. He had always assumed, in the absence of money for the train fare, that her promises to come up to London were a sisterly nothing. George’s mysterious boy was probably one of her sons. The calligraphy would have given her away sooner if he had been less tired and less distracted. Although it ought to have been the job of the butler, she had always written the place settings if the old duke was having a dinner party. He could remember doing arithmetic problems at their kitchen table when he was too small for his feet to reach the floor, while opposite him, her good pen hissed over the cards and their father made fishing flies in a vice.

He held the watch a moment longer before setting it on the wooden chair by the bed, the one that served as a table for collars and cufflinks. The gold caught the ember-light and shone the colour of a human voice.