It was a pleasant afternoon, and the sun was streaming down upon the pleasure grounds that surrounded the immense, impressive edifice of the Crystal Palace. Veronica had never seen the famous structure before, and the sheer scale of it took her breath away. It looked like an enormous summerhouse or orangery: pane upon pane of plate glass mounted in a towering framework of cast iron. It gleamed in the sunlight like a beacon upon Sydenham Hill.
As they approached, she could see that the once-great building had grown a little tired; not all of the panes sparkled as they once might have. Green stains had begun to encroach on the curved glass panels over the atrium, and creeping moss peeked inquisitively from the gutters. Nevertheless, it was one of the more impressive structures she had seen, rivalling even the grandeur of Buckingham Palace. She found it hard to believe that the structure had originally resided across town at Hyde Park, and had been rebuilt here following the closure of the Great Exhibition, moved piece by piece like the fragments of a jigsaw puzzle.
Banners streamed above the entrance, billowing and rippling in the wind and proclaiming the myriad spectacles to be found within. She had read of the show in the newspapers, of course-Urquart’s Monstrous Menagerie and Mechanical Wonders was a travelling exhibition that had toured the great cities of Europe: Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and now London. She had anticipated that Newbury, ever fascinated with progress and the modern arts, would wish to pay a visit while the exhibition was in town, but she had to admit she hadn’t anticipated it would be under circumstances like this.
The grounds around the palace were swarming with people. Hundreds, if not thousands of them were strolling in the sunshine, or disgorging from the station of the atmospheric railway that ferried them here from Central London, all wide-eyed and ready to be astounded by the wondrous sights within.
An airship berthing post had even been installed on the pleasure grounds, and was presently occupied by a fat, silver-skinned vessel that cast a broad shadow across the palace as it rocked and buffeted in the wind. Looking up at it was like seeing the underside of an enormous, glittering fish hovering right above their heads. Flights of steps buttressed the passenger gondola, and people descended them in droves. They were mostly the wealthy cognoscenti of the Empire, adorned in fine dresses and tailored suits from Savile Row.
The exhibition was open to anyone, from any walk of life-provided, of course, that they could muster the small entrance fee. For every well-to-do lady or gentleman she spotted, Veronica noted scores of working class families on outings with their children, there for the once in a lifetime opportunity to glance technological and zoological marvels and treasures from other lands.
Newbury led on into the vast atrium, where they were jostled by milling people. He produced two tickets from inside his jacket pocket and handed them to an attendant, who waved them straight through.
“Sir Charles?” asked Veronica, wondering how Newbury had managed to procure the tickets in advance.
He laughed and shook his head. “No. Scarbright picked these up for me earlier in the week. As I explained, I’d been anxious to pay a visit, and I had thought to invite you along. I simply hadn’t found the right occasion.”
Veronica smiled and tightened her grip on his arm. “Or the right excuse,” she said, laughing.
The first things that struck her upon entering the main hall were the clamour of sights and smells, and the almost deafening background chatter of a thousand or more people as they exclaimed in shock and delight at the wondrous exhibits within. The next was the gargantuan brass elephant that was nearly on top of them as soon as they emerged from the atrium. It was immense-at least the size of a real Indian elephant-but it was constructed from a series of interlocking brass plates and rivets. It had been built with intricate care, each of the plates engraved with delicate filigrees of silver and gold.
Its trunk was a snake of segmented copper pieces that curled and whipped through the air in perfect mimicry of its biological counterpart. Steam hissed and vented through ducts behind the machine’s enormous ears, which were vast vanes of hammered metal, almost paper thin, that flapped back and forth like fans, as if the elephant were attempting to cool itself. Veronica noted the trickling rivulets of condensation running across the metal plating as the steam cooled.
Atop the beast, in something reminiscent of a dickey box from a hansom cab, sat the driver. He was a short, balding fellow in a brown suit, with wire-rimmed spectacles and a green bow tie. He looked utterly out of place on the back of his immense, ungainly creation.
He appeared to be controlling the elephant via a series of wires and pulleys, not unlike a huge steam-powered puppet. It responded to each of his commands, raising one foot after another, ponderously stomping across the exhibition hall. A crowd of admirers clapped in glee as the creature raised its trunk in the air and bellowed with a loud trumpeting sound that would not have been out of place at London Zoo.
“Marvellous, isn’t it?” said Newbury, nudging her. He had a broad grin on his face. “Just look at this place!”
Veronica couldn’t help but laugh at his childlike glee. It was nice to see him smile, for once, to seem genuinely happy or inspired. There hadn’t been much of that recently, and she felt somewhat responsible. She knew he was helping her sister for reasons beyond pure altruism. He was doing it, even at the expense of his own health, because Veronica had asked him to.
They moved on, pushing their way through the crowd and leaving the elephant and its beaming driver to solicit further rapturous applause from the audience as it performed yet more tricks.
Nearby, a large arena was fenced off. Veronica could see little of what was taking place inside due to the gathered crowd of people. Newbury dragged her towards it. She rolled her eyes in mock exasperation, but truthfully, she was as intrigued as he was to see what all the fuss was about.
As they inched their way closer through the press of people, Veronica became aware of a familiar sound over the din of the crowd: the clashing of sword blades. Clearly then, this was some sort of demonstration of swordsmanship or the like. She glanced at Newbury, who was standing on his tiptoes to see over the heads of the people in front.
“Most impressive,” he said. “Can you see?”
Veronica shook her head.
“Hold on.” He led her on a circuitous route through the crowd until, a moment later, she found herself standing beside one of the corner posts of the makeshift arena. The ground inside was covered with sand, and-as she had imagined-two men were deep in the midst of an impressive display of sword fighting. They were bedecked in what looked to be mediaeval plate armour.
She turned to Newbury, a question in her eyes, but then stopped as one of the fighting men fell back to avoid a swipe of his opponent’s blade, turning the manoeuvre into an athletic back flip and landing once again upon his feet.
“They’re not human,” said Veronica, astonished.
“Indeed not,” replied Newbury. “They’re automatons.”
“Automatons!” echoed Veronica, with a shudder.
“Oriental, I believe,” mused Newbury. “If I’m not mistaken they’re soldiers from the army of the Chinese Emperor. It’s claimed he ordered thousands of them to be constructed in the workshops of his magus, and that he keeps them stored in the vaults beneath his palace in Beijing, oiled and ready for use. One day, it’s feared he may unleash them upon the world.”
Veronica could barely imagine the damage that could be wrought by an army of such things. Like the elephant, they were fashioned from interlocking plates of brass, designed in every way to resemble a human being dressed in plate armour. Now that she could see more closely, their faces looked keenly human, and each of their mechanical eyes swivelled on a twisting axis as they each took measure of their opponent.