The Watchmaker's Daughter (Glass and Steele #1)(64)

Indeed. Time had certainly ruled me of late, as it did with Mr. Glass. His hourglass was running out.

I knocked, and a middle-aged man with bushy white eyebrows opened the door. I didn't recognize him.

"Yes?" he intoned.

I barreled past him, taking him by surprise.

"Stop! This is a private hall."

"I need to speak with the Court," I tossed over my shoulder. "It will only take a moment."

I charged past the stained glass windows and the wooden paneling, wondering if any of the clocks on display belonged to my ancestors. There was no time to check the plaques. The porter was quickly bearing down on me. I pushed open the nearest door and was rewarded with some twenty heads turning my way. I'd found the court room where the members met. Meetings were only compulsory for the ten elected Court of Assistants, the men in charge of the day-to-day running of the guild, but were open to all members. Twenty was a good turnout.

"India!" Eddie pushed to his feet, a look of utter stupefaction on his face. "What are you doing? You shouldn't be here."

"That's what I tried telling her," said the porter, wheezing beside me. He tried to grab my elbow, but I stepped out of his way.

"Leave her, Mr. Carter," said Mr. Abercrombie. He sat at the head of the table, the crimson velvet and white fur master's robe draped around his shoulders, the ceremonial scepter lying on the table in front of an open ledger. All he needed was a crown and he'd resemble the emperor in the coat of arms that hung behind him. "We don't want this descending into a farce."

"So you don't want me calling the constables?" Carter asked.

Mr. Abercrombie sighed. "I don't think they'd help us."

Thank goodness for that. My greatest fear had been that he would have me arrested for the so-called theft from his shop. It would seem he'd well and truly abandoned that accusation.

"Miss Steele, I won't pretend that I'm glad to see you." He flicked his hand at Carter, and the porter exited with a bow.

I scanned the faces of the men at the table as Eddie resumed his seat. I recognized all of them. Eddie was by far the youngest. Everyone else had white, gray or balding heads. Mr. Mason wasn't present.

Mr. Abercrombie beckoned me with a crook of his finger. "Come closer, Miss Steele."

I inched forward, feeling very much like a lowly courtier who'd caught the king's disapproving eye. I stopped well back from the table, but the fellows at the nearest end shuffled their chairs farther away. I tried to recall the speech I'd rehearsed on the way over, but the beginning evaded me.

"India," Eddie said, in a voice deeper than his usual one. It sounded so ridiculously false that I almost giggled. He puffed out his chest and sat very erect in the chair, no doubt to make himself appear larger and more commanding among such important men. "What's the meaning of this?"

"Quiet, please, Mr. Hardacre," Abercrombie said with a lift of his hand. He removed his pince nez and placed it on the ledger. "Allow me to interrogate her."

Interrogate? Oh no, no, no. I hadn't come so that he could ask questions of me. "Mr. Abercrombie, I would like some answers."

"Then you shall have them."

All heads swung round to look at him. "What?" more than one of them snapped. "Don't," said others. Abercrombie held up his hand for silence. I didn't trust his sly smile, his apparent openness.

I forged on anyway. "Why are you all afraid of me?"

"Afraid of you?" He laughed. "Don't be absurd. You're just a little woman. None of us are afraid of you." His laughter was eventually joined by a smattering of others, all of them half-hearted, cautious.

I abandoned that angle and picked up another. "As most of you know, my employer, Mr. Glass, is searching for a particular watchmaker, who may or may not go by the name of Mirth. Do any of you know Mr. Mirth?"

Several members looked to Abercrombie. "I know him," Abercrombie said.

I was so surprised that I stepped forward before I remembered I didn't want to get too close.

"Mirth isn't the fellow your employer seeks," he went on.

"How do you know?"

"The confusion came about because Mirth traveled overseas at the same time as Mr. Glass says his mysterious watchmaker was in America. Mirth did not travel to America, however, but to Prussia."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because he confided in me at the time. He was looking for his daughter. She'd run off with a foreigner. Sadly, he never found her, which goes some way to explaining why he never re-opened his shop. He no longer had the heart for it. I'm afraid he's been something of a lost man ever since."

It sounded plausible, but I couldn't trust him to tell me the truth. He hated me and would try to thwart me at every turn. To what end, however, I couldn't fathom. "Then why did he suddenly disappear from the Aged Christian Society house?"

He spread out his hands. "Your guess is as good as mine. I haven't seen much of him of late." He picked up his pince nez and tapped it on the ledger in front of him. "All I know is the small allowance he receives from the guild is paid into an account at the Bank of England, and will continue to be until such time as we hear of his death. We do what we can for all our members in need, past and present."