Read The Doomsday Machine (Horatio Lyle) for Free Online

prepared to steal. The cogs in her brain kept moving, and she reached a shocking conclusion.
    ‘Hold on! You used me, you did! You gave her a sovereign so as how you know I’d go and pinch it an’ all, without tellin’ me! You went and were all sneaky!’ Lyle beamed, Tess pouted. ‘I think I liked you more when you was a soft mark, Mister Lyle.’
    ‘The pockets, Teresa; what did you find in her pockets?’
    ‘I found . . .’ Tess rummaged in her own bulky jacket, ‘a silver thimble, a roll of black thread, two copper buttons, an old bit of pencil and somethin’ all metal.’
    ‘And my sovereign, let ’s not forget that.’
    ‘I think I must have gone and missed that.’ Tess’s face was a study of innocence.
    ‘Teresa,’ said Lyle in a strained voice. ‘Surely with your free education, fine room and board, liberal weekly budget and healthy, full meals provided gratis every day to a menu usually of your own devising, you don’t need to steal my sovereign, you don’t need to pick the pockets of strangers. Surely you could just . . . not do these things?’
    ‘I only do it for you, Mister Lyle, so as I can keep in practice an’ all.’
    Lyle sighed. ‘What metal thing?’
    Tess handed it over. It was the size of a small pencil-sharpener, dull, grey and cold. Lyle felt its weight in his hand. ‘Ah.’
    ‘Oh oh oh oh I know what “ah” means. “Ah” means as how you’ve just got a clue !’
    ‘It’s a magnet,’ said Lyle.
    ‘Oh.’ Tess looked disappointed. ‘An’ that ’s a good thing?’
    ‘Teresa, who do you know in this life that don’t like magnets? ’
    ‘Um . . . people who like brass?’
    ‘Think more adventuresome than that. Think brushes with death and disaster, think explosions, think epic toil across the morally confusing landscape, think St Paul’s Cathedral and thunderstorms, think ...’
    ‘ Them? ’ Tess had turned white. ‘ They don’t like magnets, do they? What ’ve They got to do with anythin’?’
    ‘Teresa,’ sighed Lyle, ‘it was They who wanted to know where Berwick is.’
    Tess stopped dead in the middle of the street. ‘Oh . . .’ she whimpered. ‘Oh, this is bad. Can we go on holiday? That’s why you wanted to go out the secret way, ain’t it? Can we, Mister Lyle, can we go on holiday? Somewhere a long way away? This ain’t my kind of adventure at all.’
    ‘Think of it as ... as ...’ Lyle’s voice trailed off.
    ‘See! They cause nothing but trouble, with their wicked ways an’ all! Let’s go on holiday; you know it ain’t going to be right ...’
    ‘The question is,’ began Lyle in a distant voice, ‘why would she be carrying a magnet? Is she afraid of Them too? But then why do they want to find Berwick?’
    ‘Dunno, dunno, let ’s go ...’
    ‘Tess,’ sighed Lyle, ‘if They want to find him, he’s got to be in trouble. He’s an old family friend. I can’t just ... not find out. Not when there ’s so much I don’t yet understand.’
    ‘But he ’s in America!’ wailed Tess.
    ‘No, he ’s not.’
    ‘How can you be so sure?’
    ‘Did you look at the letter?’
    ‘Yeesss ...’
    ‘Did you notice the watermark?’
    ‘Erm. Not so as you’d say . . .’
    ‘Chalfont Printers: an English paper company. Now, even if I did accept for an instant that Berwick would have gone anywhere without taking his books, would he really have thought, “Ah-ha, I must pack a sheet of English paper with me to send back to England from the uncivilized beyond”? He’s in England - perhaps he wrote the letter himself, I don’t know, I’m not familiar with his handwriting. Perhaps he was forced, who knows? But the paper is English.’
    At length, in a weak voice, Tess said, ‘There ain’t nothin’ I can say what will tell you how bad this is?’
    He patted her on the shoulder. ‘It ’s all right. I already know this can’t be a good thing.’
    ‘But you’re gonna do it anyway?’
    ‘I rather think I am.’
    She let out a long sigh.