The Clockwork Heart
Inspector Carstairs of the Clockwork Constabulary is on the trail of Romina Hearn. But when she decides to steal hearts from Dr Sbaitho’s Factory, a terrible truth could the unwinding of them both.
The double doors of Portofino swung closed, and the clockwork doorman smiled at Romina Hearn unctuously. He whirred, and buzzed to intercept her as she moved inside.
Armoured in her tweed suit, heels and high dudgeon, she ignored him completely, her fur stole archly presented to him at arms length, inches from the components of his face. He took the stole, and if his rouge painted white cheeks could flush they might’ve done, but of course he could not speak.
Spewing paper tape in indignation, he placed the stole on the coat rack behind the front desk, and turned to remonstrate with her. Romina artfully drew off her gloves and hung them with her umbrella over the doorman's arm as he reached out in protest.
“My usual table! You idiots!” Romina said, as she sauntered into the main dining room, extinguishing her cigarette from its holder into a tray of drinks that another automaton was carrying. The doorman rushed to consult a list, on a clipboard that hung behind the front desk.
The servery carrier’s gears ground ominously as it cast back and forth, popping its eye stalks up to look for a human floor manager, to deal with this outrageous iconoclast. A paper tape unspooled from its top, dozens of tiny holes telling some story to be presented when the manager arrived.
”Ah, this will do perfectly,” Romina said to another clockwork waiter, taking a table near the kitchen where a portly man had only just left his bowler hat, and a copy of The Times open to the business pages as he repaired to the bathroom. She placed a hatbox with a store tag still swinging from it on the table, along with a small purse.
“A gin sling, and a half dozen oysters right away!” Romina commanded.
The waiter beeped and its eyes glowed a menacing orange. It gestured toward the front door, but Romina ducked its slow moving arms. Portofino Italian had been trumpeting in the broadsheets the fantastic service its discerning diners could expect from its cadre of ticking, whirring staff, but they didn’t think to buy ones that had faster reactions than a slug.
“Now, I must powder my nose too,” she said, slipping after the portly man. The man turned and smiled initially on hearing her, but when he saw her things piled on his table, his eyes bulged and his mouth opened and shut like a goldfish. He held a hand to his chest where a distinctive whirring, clunking sound increased to a frantic cadence.
“Mechanical heart sir? If a member of the clock-constabulary asked, you’d have a permit for that would you?” Romina asked, as she pushed past him.
How many poor little match girls died for your dinner? How many missing sisters slave in your sweatshops? You deserve what’s coming.
Then a loud pop sounded over at the table, and plumes of smoke began spewing from the hatbox. Greasy and black, it swiftly spread across the tables and patrons put down their drinks, gasping in horror.
“Great Scott!” the man said. A woman screamed. The clockworks, speechless as usually began ticker-taping in a staccato frenzy. “What did you do!”
