Mr. Harrison’s gaze latched onto hers. Desperate. Earnest. “What must I do?”
Margaret peered through the opening, overcome with nausea at the sight of the automaton soldier perched atop the minute hand, steam pluming from the top of its helmet as it looked about frantically. Pinned against the machine’s side, the boy quaked, clutching his metal captor for dear life. Neither Margaret nor Harrison could reach him on their own. They’d need to work together.
Margaret shouted to be heard over the wind. “Over here, lad! To your right!”
The boy’s head whipped about, face pale and eyes wide.
“Stay very still, and when my friend reaches for you, take hold of his hand. Understand?”
The boy nodded.
“Hold on, brave one.”
Withdrawing inside the tower, Margaret faced Mr. Harrison, praying she was making the right call. “You’ve the longer arms and greater upper body strength between us. I’ll steady you and extend your reach, holding fast to your belt, while you secure the boy. When you have him in hand, give a shout and I’ll pull you both in.”
Resolution steeled Harrison’s features, and he shed his tattered jacket, revealing a hatpin-shaped scar on one forearm. Margaret gritted her teeth, focusing on the task at hand. She looped her fingers through his belt and cinched in a tight grasp. Widening her stance, she braced her boots against the base of the tower’s stone wall and iron framework. “Now!”
As Mr. Harrison leaned out of the broken clockface, his weight pulled on Margaret’s arms and shoulders. Straining her muscles. Stretching the stiffened scar tissue that’d formed around the old wounds. Her pain level increased, sharpening as it sliced through her ribs and lower back. A gasp wrenched from her contorted face, but she didn’t let go. She held fast, leaning into the pain as she lowered Harrison farther. Her muscles quaked. Sweat beaded along her skin only to be cooled by the gusts of air that threatened to yank them from the tower. Over Harrison’s shoulder, she could just make out the harrowing scene illuminated by the tower’s lights and framed by the jagged opal glass.
The little match boy, his small arms outstretched for help. The fraudulent inventor, his large hand extended to render aid. Neither one quite able to grasp the other. Tiny fingers, smudged with dirt, and gnarled fingers, stained with drying blood, reaching ... ever ... reaching. Straining ... ever ... straining to bridge the open air that kept them apart.
The air that would not catch them should they fall.
The air that was no longer swirling exhaust above the automaton’s helmet.
Margaret’s heart sputtered, threatening to stall. The polyphon discs had run their course, and the steam engine had turned off. Stranded on the clock tower’s minute hand, the machine no longer looked this way and that, as though searching for escape. It no longer shuffled back and forth as though unsure whether to retreat or forge ahead. The automaton had stilled.
A dead weight in possession of a life.
Its grip on the child began to slacken. Its metal body swayed to the right, tipping like a felled tree about to crash to the forest floor. The boy screamed. The clock ticked.
Harrison lunged, yanking Margaret with him through the dial.
Her face slammed into Mr. Harrison’s back, obscuring her vision, and suddenly, his weight increased with a jolt. Pain exploded in her shoulders. Her ribs. Had Harrison caught the boy ... or his precious machine? Mind muddled by excruciating pain, she couldn’t think. Couldn’t calculate the additional weight she now strained to hold. The muscles in her arms quaked. Now half dangling from the dial, blood rushed to her head. She felt dizzy and weak.
“Up! Pull us up!” Harrison shouted.
I can’t!A sob caught in Margaret’s throat as her boots started to slip. The weight was too great for her to manage alone. It was dragging Mr. Harrison farther out the dial and her along with him. Her weakness was going to kill them all.
Strong arms cinched around Margaret’s waist, infusing her with defiant hope that tightened her grip on Mr. Harrison’s belt. By a might not her own, she was pulled into the safety of the tower, toppling against someone just before Harrison fell against her in a heap.
A kiss was pressed to Margaret’s head. “Thank God.”
She knew that voice. She loved that voice. “Charles?”
“I’m here, Maggie. I’ve got you.” The arms that held her shifted to cradle her head.
Charles was holding her in his arms, brown eyes gleaming with tears and face reddened by one of his endearing blushes. Behind him, the lady inspectors were sprawled upon the floor in a line, one atop the next. They must’ve formed a human chain. A chain in which she’d served as but one of the manylinks. A chain that had just saved Mr. Harrison and the young boy he was attempting to soothe.
The sob in Margaret’s throat finally broke through. He’d done the right thing. In that crucial second, forced to choose between the machine he considered his redemption and the life of a child, Mr. Harrison had chosen life and allowed his legacy of guile to fall away.
Iva Leene appeared, taking the boy from Mr. Harrison and escorting him to the exit. “Hush now, young’un.’ You’re safe as a June bug in a haystack. Let’s get you out of here and see about putting some meat on these spindly bones of yours. You like biscuits and gravy? My brothers used to put them away like pigs at a feed trough.”
Louisa scampered after them as they vanished into the stairwell. “I’ve got a delightful book about pigs! How would you like a good story to go along with your meal?”
With the boy in capable hands, Jane and Helena saw to the less-pleasant task of taking Mr. Harrison into custody. To his credit, Mr. Harrison surrendered without a fight, submitting to the cuffs Jane snapped upon his wrists and agreeing to make a full account of himself to the authorities as she and Helena led him away.
The case was over. There was nothing else she need do.
