chapter five

the clockwork man investigates matters

i

whatever inconveniences the clockwork man suffered as a result of having lapsed into a world of strange laws and manifestations, he enjoyed at least one advantage. his power of travelling over the earth at an enormous speed rendered the question of pursuit almost farcical. while allingham's car sped over the neighbouring hills, the object of the chase returned by a circuitous route to great wymering, slowed down, and began to walk up and down the high street. it was now quite dark, and very few people seemed to have noticed that odd figure ambling along, stopping now and again to examine some object that aroused his interest or got in his way. there is no doubt that during these lesser perambulations he contrived somehow to get the silencer under better control, so that his progress was now muted. it is possible also that his faculties began to adjust themselves a little to his strange surroundings, and that he now definitely tried to grasp his[pg 85] environment. but he still suffered relapses. and the fact that he again wore a hat and wig, although not his own, requires a word of explanation.

it was this circumstance that accounted for the vicar's late arrival at the entertainment given in aid of the church funds that night. he had lingered over his sermon until the last moment, and then hurried off with only a slight pause in which to glance at himself in the hall mirror. he walked swiftly along the dark streets in the direction of the templars' hall, which was situated at the lower end of the town. perhaps it was because of his own desperate hurry that he scarcely noticed that other figure approaching him, and in a straight line. he swerved slightly in order to allow the figure to pass, and continued on his way.

and then he stopped abruptly, aware of a cool sensation on the top of his head. his hat and wig had gone! aghast, he retraced his steps, but there was no sign of the articles on the pavement. it seemed utterly incredible, for there was only a slight breeze and he did not remember knocking into anything. he had certainly not collided with the stranger. just for a moment he wondered.

but duty to his parishioners remained uppermost in the conscientious vicar's mind, and it was not fair to them that he should[pg 86] catch his death of cold. he hurried back to the vicarage. for a quarter of an hour he pulled open drawers, ransacked cupboards, searching everywhere for an old wig that had been discarded and a new hat that had never been worn. he found them at last and arrived, breathless and out of temper, in the middle of the cinematograph display which constituted the first part of the performance.

"my dear," he gasped, as he slid into the seat reserved for him next to his wife, "i couldn't help it. someone stole my hat and wig."

"stole them, herbert," she expostulated. "not stole them."

"yes, stole them. i'll tell you afterwards is this the palestine picture? oh, yes—"

ii

and so the clockwork man was able to conceal his clock from the gaze of a curious world, and the grotesqueness of his appearance was heightened by the addition of a neatly trimmed chestnut wig and a soft round clerical hat. his perceptions must have been extraordinarily rapid, and he must have acted upon the instant. nor did it seem to occur to him that in this world there are laws which forbid theft. probably, in the world from which he[pg 87] came such restrictions are unnecessary, and the exigency would not have arisen, every individual being provided by parliamentary statute with a suitable covering for that blatant and too obvious sign of the modus operandi in the posterior region of their craniums.

it was shortly after this episode that the clockwork man experienced his first moment of vivid illumination about the world of brief mortal span.

he had become entangled with a lamp-post. there is no other way of describing his predicament. he came to rest with his forehead pressed against the post, and all his efforts to get round it ended in dismal failure. his legs kicked spasmodically and his arms revolved irregularly. there were intermittent explosions, like the back-firing of a petrol engine. the only person who witnessed these peculiar antics was p.c. hawkins, who had been indulging in a quiet smoke beneath the shelter of a neighbouring archway.

at first it did not occur to the constable that the noise proceeded from the figure. he craned his head forward, expecting every moment to see a motor bicycle come along. the noise stopped abruptly, and he decided that the machine must have gone up a side street. then he stepped out of his retreat and tapped the clockwork man on the shoulder[pg 88] the latter was quite motionless now and merely leaning against the lamp-post.

"you go 'ome," suggested the constable, "i don't want to have to take you. this is one of my lenient nights, lucky for you."

"wallabaloo," said the clockwork man, faintly, "wum—wum—"

"yes, we know all about that," said the constable, "but you take my tip and go 'ome. and i don't want any back answers neither."

the clockwork man emitted a soft whistling sound from between his teeth, and rubbed his nose thoughtfully against the post.

"what is this?" he enquired, presently.

"lamp-post," rejoined the other, clicking his teeth, "l.a.m.p.-p.o.s.t. lamp-post."

"i see—curious, only one lamp-post, though. in my country they grow like trees, you know—whole forests of them—galaxy of lights—necessary—illuminate multiform world."

the constable laughed gently and stroked his moustache. his theory about the condition of the individual before him slowly developed.

"you get along," he persuaded, "before there's trouble. i don't want to be 'arsh with you."

"wait," said the clockwork man, without altering his position, "moment of lucidity—see things as they are—begin to understand—[pg 89]finite world—only one thing at a time. now we've got it—a place for everything and everything in its place."

"just what i'm always telling my missus," reflected the constable.

the clockwork man shifted his head very slightly, and one eye screwed slowly round.

"i want to grasp things," he resumed, "i want to grasp you. so far as i can judge, i see before me—a constable—minion of the law—curious relic—primitive stage of civilisation—order people about finite world—lock people up—finite cell."

"that's my job," agreed the other, with a warning glint in his red eye.

"finite world," proceeded the clockwork man, "fixed laws—limited dimensions—essentially limited. now, when i'm working properly, i can move about in all dimensions. that is to say, in addition to moving backwards and forwards, and this way and that, i can also move x and y, and x2 and y2."

the corners of the constable's eyes wrinkled a little. "of course," he ruminated, "if you're going to drag algebra into the discussion i shall 'ave to cry off. i never got beyond decimals."

"let me explain," urged the clockwork man, who was gaining in verbal ease and intellectual elasticity every moment. "supposing[pg 90] i was to hit you hard. you would fall down. you would become supine. you would assume a horizontal position at right angles to your present perpendicularity." he gazed upwards at the tall figure of the constable. "but if you were to hit me, i should have an alternative. i could, for example, fall into the middle of next week."

the constable rubbed his chin thoughtfully, as though he thought this highly likely. "whatdyemean by that," he demanded.

"i said next week," explained the other, "in order to make my meaning clear. actually, of course, i don't describe time in such arbitrary terms. but when one is in rome, you know. what i mean to convey is that i am capable of going not only somewhere, but also somewhen."

"'ere, stow that gammon," broke in the constable, impatiently, "s'nuff of that sort of talk. you come along with me." he spat determinedly and prepared to take action.

but at that moment, as the constable afterwards described it to himself, it seemed to him that there came before his eyes a sort of mist. the figure leaning against the lamp-post looked less obvious. he did not appear now to be a palpable individual at all, but a sort of shadowy outline of himself, blurred and in[pg 91]distinct. the constable rubbed his eyes and stretched out a hand.

"alright," he heard a tiny, remote voice, "i'm still here—i haven't gone yet—i can't go—that's what's so distressing. i don't really understand your world, you know—and i can't get back to my own. don't be harsh with me—it's so awkward—between the devil and the deep sea."

"what's up?" exclaimed the constable, startled. "what yer playing at? where are you?"

"here i am," the thin voice echoed faintly. the constable wheeled round sharply and became aware of a vague, palpitating mass, hovering in the dark mouth of the archway. it was like some solid body subjected to intense vibration. there was a high-pitched spinning noise.

"'ere," said the constable, "cut that sort of caper. what's the little game?" he made a grab at where he thought the shadowy form ought to be, and his hand closed on the empty air.

"gawd," he gasped, "it's a blooming ghost."

he fancied he heard a voice very indistinctly begging his pardon. again he clutched wildly at a shoulder and merely snapped his fingers. "strike a light," he muttered, under his breath, "this ain't good enough. it ain't[pg 92] nearly good enough." reaching forward he stumbled, and to save himself from falling placed a hand against the wall. the next moment he leapt backwards with a yell. his hand and arm had gone clean through the filmy shape.

"gawd, it's spirits—that's what it is."

"it's only me," remarked the clockwork man, suddenly looming into palpable form again. "don't be afraid. i must apologise for my eccentric behaviour. i tried an experiment. i thought i could get back. you said i was to go home, you know. but i can't get far." his voice shook a little. it jangled like a badly struck chord. "i'm a poor, maimed creature. you must make allowances for me. my clock won't work properly."

he began to vibrate again, his whole frame quivering and shaking. little blue sparks scintillated around the back part of his head. he lifted one leg up as though to take a step forward; and then his ears flapped wildly, and he remained with one leg in mid-air and a finger to his nose.

the constable gave way to panic. he temporised with his duty. "stow it," he begged, "i can't take you to the station like this. they'll never believe me." he took off his hat and rubbed his tingling forehead.[pg 93] "say it's a dream, mate," he added, in a whining voice. "'ow can i go 'ome to the missus with a tale like this. she'll say it's the gin again. it's always my luck to strike something like this. when the ghost came to bapchurch churchyard, it was me wot saw it first, and nobody believed me. you go along quietly, and we'll look over it this time."

but the clockwork man made no reply. he was evidently absorbed in the effort to restart some process in himself. presently his foot went down on the pavement with a smart bang. there followed a succession of sharp explosions, and the next second he glided smoothly away.

the constable returned furtively to his shelter beneath the arch, hitched himself thoughtfully, and found half a cigarette inside his waistcoat pocket.

"it's the gin," he ruminated, half out loud, "i'll 'ave to knock it off. 'tain't as though i ain't 'ad warnings enough. i've seen things before and i shall see them again—"

he lit the cigarette end and puffed out a cloud of smoke. "i never see 'im," he soliloquised, "not really."

iv

perhaps it was the strong glare of light issuing from the half-open door of the[pg 94] templar's hall that attracted the attention of the clockwork man as he wandered along towards the lower end of the town. he entered, and found himself in a small lobby curtained off from the main body of the hall. he must have made some slight noise as he stepped upon the bare boards, for the curtain was swept hastily back, and the curate, who was acting as chief steward of the proceedings, came hurriedly forward.

as he approached the figure standing beneath the incandescent lamp, the clerical beam upon the curate's clean-shaven features deepened into a more secular expression of heartfelt relief.

"i'm so glad you have come at last," he began, in a strong whisper, "i was beginning to be afraid you were going to disappoint us."

"i am certainly late," remarked the clockwork man, "about eight thousand years late, so far as i can judge."

the curate scarcely seemed to catch this remark. "well, i'm glad you've turned up," he went on, "it's so pitiful when the little ones have to be disappointed, and they have been so looking forward to the conjuring. your things have arrived."

"what things?" enquired the clockwork man.

"your properties," said the curate, "the[pg 95] rabbits and mice, and so forth. they came this afternoon. i had them put on the stage."

he fingered nervously with his watch, and then his eye rested for a second upon the other's head gear.

"excuse me, but you are the conjurer, aren't you?" he enquired, a trifle anxiously.

before the clockwork man had time to reply to this embarrassing question, the curtain was again swiftly drawn, and an anxious female face appeared. "james, has the conjurer—oh, yes, i see he has. do be quick, james. the picture is nearly over."

the face disappeared, and the curate's doubts evaporated for the moment. "will you come this way?" he continued, and led the way through a long, dark passage to the back of the hall. behind the screen, upon which the picture was being shown, there was a small space, and here a stage had been erected. upon a small table in the centre stood a large bag and some packages. the curate adjusted the small gas-jet so as to produce an illumination sufficient to move about. "we must talk low," he explained, pointing to the screen in front of them, "the cinematograph is still showing. we shall be ready in about ten minutes. can you manage in that time?"

but the clockwork man made no reply. he stood in the middle of the stage and slowly[pg 96] lifted a finger to his nose. the curate's doubts returned. something seemed to occur to him as he examined his companion more closely. "you haven't been taking anything, my good man, have you? anything of an alcholic nature?"

"conjuring," said the clockwork man, slowly, "obsolete form of entertainment. quickness of the hand deceives the eye."

"er—yes," murmured the curate. he laughed, rather hysterically, and clasped his hands behind his back. "i suppose you do the—er—usual things—gold watches and so forth out of—er—hats. the children have been so looking forward—"

he paused and unclasped his hands. the clockwork man was looking at him very hard, and his eyes were rolling in their sockets in a most bewildering fashion. there was a long pause.

"dear me," the curate resumed at last, "there must be some mistake. you don't look to me like a conjurer. you see, i wrote to gamages, and they promised they would send a man. naturally, i thought when you—"

"gamages," interrupted the clockwork man, "wait—i seem to understand—it comes back to me—universal providers—cash account—nine and ninepence—nine and nine[pg 97]pence—nine and ninepence—i beg your pardon."

"really!" the curate's jaw dropped several inches. "i must apologise. you see, i'm really rather flurried. i have the burden of this entertainment upon my shoulders. it was i who arranged the conjuring. i thought it would be so nice for the children." he started rubbing his hands together vigorously, as though to cover up his embarrassment. "then—then you aren't the man from gamages?"

"no," said the clockwork man, with a certain amount of dignity, "i am the man from nowhere."

the curate's hands became still. "oh, dear." he wrestled with the blankness in his mind. "you're certainly—forgive me for saying it—rather an odd person. i'm afraid we've both made a mistake, haven't we?"

"wait," said the clockwork man, as the curate walked hesitatingly towards the door, "i begin to grasp things—conjuring—"

"but are you the conjurer?" asked the curate, coming back.

"where i come from," was the astonishing reply, "we are all conjurers. we are always doing conjuring tricks."

the curate's hands were busy again. "i really am quite at a loss," he murmured.

[pg 98]

"it was a characteristic of the earlier stages of the human race," said the clockwork man, as though he were addressing a class of students upon some abstruse subject, "that they exercised the arts of legerdemain, magic, illusion and so forth, purely as forms of entertainment in their leisure hours."

"now that sounds interesting," murmured the curate, as the other paused, although rather for matter than for breath, "it's so authoritative—as though it were a quotation from some standard work. all the same, and much as i should like to hear more—"

"it is a quotation," explained the clockwork man solemnly, "from a work i was reading when i—when the thing happened to me. it is published by gamages, and the price is nine and nine pence—nine and nine pence—oh, bother—"

"i'll make a note of it," said the curate. "but you must really excuse me now. i have so much to see to. there's the refreshments. the sandwiches are only half cut—"

"it was not until the fifty-ninth century," continued the clockwork man, speaking with a just perceptible click, "that man became a conjurer in real life. we have here an instance of the complete turning over of human ideas. ancient man conjured for amusement; modern man conjures as a matter of course. since the[pg 99] invention of the clock and all that its action implies, including the discovery of at least three new dimensions, or fields of action, man's simplest act of an utilitarian nature may be regarded as a sort of conjuring trick. certainly our forefathers, if they could see us as we are now constituted, would regard them as such—"

"so frightfully interesting," the curate managed to interpose, "but i really cannot spare the time." he had reverted now to the alcoholic diagnosis.

"the work in question," continued the clockwork man, without taking any notice at all of the other's impatience, "is of a satirical nature. its purpose is to awaken people to a sense of the many absurdities in modern life that result from a too mechanical efficiency. it is all in my head. i can spin it all out, word for word—"

"not now," hastily pleaded the curate. "some other time i should be glad to hear it. i am," his mouth opened very wide, "a great reader myself. and of course, as a professional conjurer, your interest in such a book would be two-fold."

"when you asked me if i were a conjurer," said the clockwork man, "i at once recalled the book. you see, it's actually in my head. that is how we read books now. we wear[pg 100] them inside the clock, in the form of spools that unwind. what you have said brings it all back to me. it suddenly occurs to me that i am indeed a conjurer, and that all my actions in this backward world must be regarded in the light of magic."

the curate's eyebrows shot up in amazement. "magic?" he queried, with a short laugh. "oh, we didn't bargain for magic. only the usual sleight of hand."

"you see, i had lost faith in myself," said the clockwork man, plaintively. "i had forgotten what i could do. i was so terribly run down."

"ah," said the curate, kindly, "very likely that's what it is. the weather has been very trying. one does get these aberrations. but i do hope you will be able to struggle through the performance, for the children's sake. dear me, how did you manage to do that?"

the curate's last remark was rapped out on a sharp note of fright and astonishment, for the clockwork man, as though anxious to demonstrate his willingness to oblige, had performed his first conjuring trick.

iii

now the curate, apart from a tendency to lose his head on occasion, was a perfectly[pg 101] normal individual. there was nothing myopic about him. the human mind is so constituted that it can only receive certain impressions of abnormal phenomena slowly and through the proper channels. all sorts of fantastic ideas, intuitions, apprehensions and vague suspicions had been dancing upon the floor of the curate's brain as he noticed certain peculiarities about his companion. but he would probably not have given them another thought if it had not been for what now happened.

it would require a mathematical diagram to describe the incident with absolute accuracy. the curate, of course, had heard nothing about the clockwork man's other performances; he had scarcely heeded the hints thrown out about the possibility of movement in other dimensions. it seemed to him, in the uncertain light of their surroundings, that the clockwork man's right arm gradually disappeared into space. there was no arm there at all. afterwards, he remembered a brief moment when the arm had begun to grow vague and transparent; it was moving very rapidly, in some direction, neither up nor down, nor this way or that, but along some shadowy plane. then it went into nothing, evaporated from view. and just as suddenly, it swung back into the plane of the curate's vision, and the hand at the end of it grasped a silk hat.

[pg 102]

the curate's heart thumped slowly. "but how did you do it?" he gasped. "and your arm, you know—it wasn't there!"

so far as the clockwork man's features were capable of change, there passed across them a faint expression of triumph and satisfaction. "i perceive," he remarked, "that i have indeed lapsed into a world of curiously insufficient and inefficent beings. i have fallen amongst the unclocked. they cannot perceive nowhere. they do not understand nowhen. they lack senses and move about on a single plane. henceforth, i shall act with greater confidence."

he threw the hat into infinity and produced a parrot cage with parrot.

"stop it!" the curate gasped. "my heart, you know—i have been warned—sudden shocks." he staggered to the wall and groped blindly for an emergency exit, which he knew to be there somewhere. he found it, forced the door open and fell limply upon the pavement outside.

the clockwork man turned slowly and surveyed the prostrate figure. "a rudimentary race," he soliloquised, with his finger nosewards, "half blind, and painfully restricted in their movements. evidently they have only a few senses—five at the most." he passed out into the street, carefully avoiding the body.[pg 103] "they have a certain freedom," he continued, still nursing his nose, "within narrow limits. but they soon grow limp. and when they fall down, or lose balance, they have no choice but to embrace the earth."

he waddled along, with his head stuck jauntily to one side. "i have nothing to fear," he added, "from such a rudimentary race of beings."

v

"evidently," his thoughts ran on, "they must regard me as an extraordinary being. and, of course, i am—and far superior. i am a superior being suffering from a nervous breakdown."

he stopped himself abruptly, as though this view of the matter solved a good many problems.

"i must get myself seen to," he mused, "because, of course, that accounts for everything; my lapse into this defunct order of things and my inability to move about freely in the usual, multiform manner. and it accounts for my absurd behaviour just now."

he turned slowly, as though considering whether to return and explain matters to the curate. "i must have frightened him," he whispered, almost audibly, "but i only wanted[pg 104] to show him, and the parrot cage happened to be handy."

he trundled forward again and lurched into the middle of the street.

"death," he reflected, "that was death, i suppose. they still die."