“Quite suitable. Go ahead. And now, specify an operation.”
“Multiply?”
“Certainly, if that is what you would like. Move the lever.”
There was a sound of metal on metal as the operation lever engaged. This time the silence lasted less than ten seconds. A series of clicks sounded from the base, and another cardboard strip emerged from the slot.
Riker indicated the base, without touching anything. “Tear it off.”
Pole did so, and frowned down at it.
“Read what it says, Colonel Pole.”
“It says, five-three-three-two-one-one-four. But how the devil am I supposed to know if that’s right?”
“It will be correct, Colonel, believe me.” Riker showed total self-confidence. He turned to Darwin. “Doctor, would you perhaps like to perform your own experiments?”
Darwin had been hovering close, like a child forbidden to touch a new toy. He nodded at once.
Pole gave up his seat and retreated to a corner of the room, frowning over the cardboard strip that he held. Darwin took Pole’s place, his broad rump overflowing the sides of the stool. He employed each feature of the engine systematically, one after another. He paid particular attention to the length of the pause that followed each problem, and he studied the printed output carefully as it emerged.
“It’s right!” Pole returned from the corner, where he had been scribbling on the slip of stiff paper. “Damme, I checked the answer by hand, and every digit is just as it should be. Professor, it’s amazing.”
“Would it not be stranger, Colonel Pole, if most were right and one was wrong?”
“But how the devil does it do it?”
Riker smiled indulgently. “That, sir, must remain my secret. Let me say that no clock maker in Europe—no, in all the world—is able to construct its like.” He turned to Darwin. “Your hosts have seen the engine in operation before, several times. Do you have questions?”
Darwin shook his head and hunched low on the stool.
“Then with your permission.” Riker addressed the waiting menservants. “Take the engine and place it on my gig—and carefully.” Then, to the Solbornes and their visitors, “I must be on my way to Abbotsbury, as soon as the calculating engine is safely housed. My apologies if I do not stay longer.”
The heavy machine was hauled downstairs and loaded carefully on board Riker’s waiting gig. The professor bade goodnight to Darwin, who had followed him downstairs, and drove off. Darwin frowned after the light carriage, listening to the fading sound of the horse’s hooves on the gravel. The fog of early evening had cleared, giving way to a faint and eerie sea-mist that came and went at random.
Solborne was waiting anxiously when he went back upstairs.
“Well?”
“Where is your sister?”
“She has retired to her rooms, probably for the night. She pleads fatigue. But what of Riker?”
“I agree with you. He is not at all what he pretends to be.”
“You mean, he is a—a—”
“I do not mean that he is a vampire. He is something much more ordinary, and possibly far more dangerous.”
“But my sister—when he was here, did you not see the change in her? She gazed at him steadily, and she did not speak one word.”
“It was not necessary. Everything was pre-arranged. Can you be at the front door, warmly clad, in five minutes?”
“Of course. But why?”
Darwin ignored the question. He went across to Jacob Pole, who sat smoking his pipe, spitting into the fire, and staring over and over again at the printed figures produced by Riker’s calculating engine. “Jacob, stir yourself. Our work for the evening is not yet over.”
“Eh?”
“You will see. Get your warmest clothes, and meet me by the front door in five minutes.”
“Eh?”
“We are going to track down a vampire. What else?”
“We are going to what?” Pole jerked upright and dropped his pipe. “My pistols—”
“Will hardly help, I think.” Darwin was already heading down the stairs to the main hall, where his own cloak and broad-brimmed hat had been hung on an antlered stand. “What possible use could pistols be,” he said cheerfully over his shoulder, “against a vampire?”
Newlands stood close to the edge of the high sea-bank, which at this point of its southern course was a steep cliff dropping away to the water. Beyond the big house the shoreline ran in a concave curve. By walking fifty yards south, the three men could achieve a good view of the high tower containing Helen’s suite of rooms. Beyond it, almost invisible, stood the house’s dim-lit central portion and the north tower.
Darwin brought them to a halt. Solborne gazed around at the dreary and silent horizon.
“What now? I don’t see a thing.”
“It may take a while. Keep your eyes there.” Darwin’s pudgy forefinger was pointing to the south tower, where the highest window was faintly visible as a dark outline in white stone.
Tom Solborne frowned, while Pole kept his hand on one of two pistols stuck in his belt. It was easy to imagine a dark shape, hovering outside the curtained window or creeping up the smooth wall. Even if legend said that a lead ball would not work, it was certainly worth a try.
The wait stretched into twenty minutes, while the air grew colder and the men shivered. Three minutes more, and a series of creaking sounds disturbed the breathless night. They came from the upper levels of the white tower.
“Very soon now,” breathed Darwin.
“Where is it?” Solborne scanned the tower from top to bottom. “What is it? How does it get in?”
“Not in.” A different sound was added to Darwin’s words, the whir of cords on pulleys. “Not in. Out.”
Heavy curtains across the high window were suddenly drawn aside. A beam of light, faintly visible in the mist that still swirled along the shore, speared out over the sea. It shone for twenty seconds, then vanished behind closing curtains. Half a minute later the curtains opened and the light was visible again.
“Now.” Darwin was already on the move. “While Helen is preoccupied. Quickly.”
The others hurried after him into the main door of the house and on up the left-hand stairs. They passed Joan Rowland’s room, where Darwin paused long enough to look in on the startled girl and place a finger to his lips.
“Softly, now.” He was opening the door to the south tower, slowly and silently. “I checked earlier that there is no lock here, but any loud sound would reveal our presence. Keep to the wall.”
The advice was necessary. They were ascending the curved staircase in near-total darkness. Up through the sitting room and study, up through the empty bedroom. Finally they were on the flight of stairs that led to the dressing room. With the other two right behind him Darwin paused at the closed door, then rapidly swung it wide.
The room beyond was a confusion of light and shadow, of bright vertical bars marking boundaries for solid rectangles of darkness. That changed when Darwin seized one of the dark oblongs and spun it around on its axis. It became a full-length mirror, one of a dozen carefully placed around the walls of the room. Their glass picked up the light of four massive oil lamps in the middle of the chamber and reflected it as a single beam.
Helen Solborne had been crouched low by the window. She swung around as the door opened, dropping the cord to the window drapes. Darwin strode forward, picked up the cord, and decisively pulled the heavy curtains closed.
Helen remained kneeling, her face pale and tense. She did not speak, but shrank back at Jacob Pole’s accusing shout.
“Wreckers, by God! You’re a damned wrecker, setting up false lights to deceive mariners! If I hadn’t seen this, I wouldn’t have believed it.”