Saturday 7th May 1879: Overton Farm

Obviously we didn’t die because I am writing this. But it was close.

“Shhhhhh!” I whispered as the thugs leapt to their feet.

Somewhat to my surprise they obeyed; perhaps helped by the fact that there was a shotgun, pistol, and very large man with a sap standing before them. Their shotguns rested idle against the furniture, far enough out of reach to dissuade them from a desperate lunge.

Blackwood moved to grab the nearest shotgun as Silas spoke. “This will go best if you don’t fight; a short sleep for you and we will be gone.” He opened his medicine bag and prepared another dose of ether, drawing nervous glances from the men who stood arms aloft.

As Silas moved toward the first man, he started moving for the only door. I quickly intercepted, keeping my pistol trained on him. Before the thug could protest, Silas lifted the ether to the man’s face and he collapsed gracefully to the floor. The other man looked terrified by this, no doubt thinking his companion dead, and started toward the stairs. Blackwood was ready, shoving his newly acquired shotgun into the man’s ample stomach. “Sleep, or die now, it’s your choice.”

Thankfully the man opted for the latter, and now we just had two limp bodies to deal with. The gentlemen carried them down to join their compatriot in the cellar whilst I waited. I listened carefully at the doorway, hearing nothing, but from the stairwell leading upstairs I could hear footsteps patrolling the floor above, but not coming downstairs. I discovered another doorway down a short half flight of stairs, but there was no obvious sounds from behind it.

After what seemed like an eternity (in reality twenty minutes) Silas and Blackwood returned, having bound the men with makeshift ropes made from tearing apart the bedding from Salvin’s erstwhile prison.

I suggested we take the near door, upstairs being a challenge we were not quite ready to meet, hoping it might lead to a servant’s passage with alternate access to the upper floors. It was unlocked and opened into a kitchen-proper, with a large oven, sinks, and preparation areas. A door led north, and a window looked over the eastern aspect of the property.

It is here that things took a considerable turn for the worse.

As I tried the next door I was surprised to find it locked; at the same time Silas suddenly called out: “The oven!” I spun to find a noxious smoke billowing out from said oven, at the same time as the shutters on the window outside slammed shut. “A trap!” Blackwood bellowed.

I quickly picked the lock and yanked on the door, but to our dismay it was barred! An internal door! The chemical smoke was now filling the room, and I staggered toward the door through which we had entered only to find it also locked! Blackwood was fighting to open the windows but collapsed under the inhalation of the fumes. As I fought to unlock the door I too was overcome by the poisonous vapours emitting from the oven. My last sight was of Silas desperately hacking at the far door with a crowbar he had extracted from Blackwood’s bag of tricks.

I awoke some hours later on a bed in the room where we had found Salvin. Silas was sitting up groggily on a second bed, and Blackwood slumbered on the cold stone floor. I felt ill to the core, both from the effects of the smoke and the failure of our attempt.

“It’s over,” I mumbled to Silas as Blackwood slowly roused. “How on earth did they trap that room so quickly? And how did they know we were heading that way?”

“I made it through the other door,” Silas explained, “But there were too many of them. A shotgun butt to the face was the end of this little escapade.”

I stood, gingerly, waiting for my equilibrium to return, and walked to the door. It was locked. I pounded on it a few times, but there was no sound from beyond. With a sigh I reached into my inner pockets, relieved to find my small lockpick set still in place. The door proved no problem.

“Time to go home, gentlemen,” I said to subdued glances.

“They have taken everything,” Blackwood protested. “I need my tools back.”

“Not now, Jack,” Silas said. “The Baron can buy you replacements. My medicine bag, a family heirloom, will be more difficult, but he owes us. We have taken enough risks for him. The real question now is why did they let us live?”

“For the same reason you said we could not go on a reckless killing spree,” I suggested, “Why risk the inevitible trouble with the law when you can do what you need to do and leave with no proof of any wrongdoing.”

“Maybe,” Silas shrugged.

We hauled the sideboard to the side, taking great care to minimise noise, revealing the secret door. We had no light this time, so the tunnel was pitch black. I searched in vain for the opening in the ceiling, hoping it might provide as safer egress.

At the far end we cautiously climbed into the Arcane Chamber; or, as it turned out, what was once the Arcane Chamber. The room was half-emptied: the fresnel lens removed from the brass construct, the focusing table gone, as was the orrery of the moon’s path.

“We really are too late,” I sighed.

Outside the courtyard was empty but for a large cart with many wooden crates, all cracked open. Blackwood crouched by one to read the inscription burnt into the timber: “‘Dynamite’,” he read.

“Oh my god,” I cried, “They are going to destroy everything here! Run!”

I started sprinting away, but Silas and Blackwood seemed less concerned. I waited for them in the nearby copse of trees, breathless. “Gideon they are not going to blow this house up,” Silas assured me irritatingly.

“What do you mean? Perhaps that is why they let us live—if we died in an explosion there would be no reason to suspect foul play. Our presence, breaking and entering, would make us the guilty party.”

“They have taken the dynamite through the mirror to the Tower,” Blackwood said bluntly.

“Exactly,” Silas agreed. “Gideon they are going to blow up the Tower, and the Jewels with it.”

I paled. Each explanation was equally dire, but the latter now seemed most likely.

As we spoke Silas was watching the house. He hushed us as a single patrol passed, then pointed to the upper stories. “There are lights up there. And there’s something else—Blackwood? Remember your vision of the room through the mirror? Would the curved room match that upper story bulge?”

We all looked at the house and Blackwood nodded slowly. “Possibly, yes.”

Silas was right! There as a distinct curve to the rooms on the northern aspect. This was not proof, of course, but we all felt it: the mysterious mirror room simply must be within.

I was shaken by a cough, reminding me of our recent ordeal and of what madness it would be to risk that again. “We cannot go back in there,” I said quietly.

“We must, Gideon!” Silas said, his curiosity piqued beyond his control, “We could stop this whole thing right now!”

“Silas! We almost died in there! What about your vaunted neck?!”

“I won’t hang if we go back inside. It was your idea to come here, may I remind you.”

“This is preposterous! Now you want to investigate?! Very well we will investigate!”

I was so incensed, so furious, that I stormed off toward the house. Which was rather reckless given the patrols and recent events. I put it down to exhaustion (for the poisonous smoke had taken a toll), the start of withdrawal, and Silas’s topsy-turvy opinions. One minute he was strongly against something, the next keenly for!

Before I made too much of a fool of myself Blackwood steered me away from the front gate and back to the rear of the house. Of course this was the right thing to do, and I was grudgingly glad someone had kept their head.

We slipped through the back gate (me fumbling the gate lock despite it’s simplicity thanks to my head of steam) and approached the house, the fateful curved wall looming overhead. As luck would have it the curtains in the lower rooms were open, so we could see all the rooms were empty. “Quiet now,” Silas warned, just as Blackwood stumbled and crashed into a service cart. Somewhat miraculously no-one came to investigate, lending further credence to Silas’s opinion that all the malcontents had decamped to London with their hoards of dynamite.

It was a very nice house indeed I noticed in passing; lovely rugs and a magnificent pianoforte—somewhat cheapened by the suits of armour that stood in the entrance hall that were faux at best.

We crept up the stairs to find a landing with a pair of doors on matching corridors either side of the central room we suspected housed the mirror. I carefully opened one, only a crack, before quickly pulling it closed when I saw a (thankfully distracted) thug sitting smoking inside. Curiously I could see no door where leading to the middle room. The corridor on the other side was similar, opening to an empty sleeping chamber with no other doors.

“There is no way into the main room,” I whispered, excited. “They must be hiding something!” I looked around for a way that we might gain egress. The only thing that lay in the hall was a bookshelf. Then Blackwood pointed something out: the bookshelf was embedded into the wall, front flat with the line of plaster—the only one we had seen like that. “There must be a secret panel!”

Silas quickly found a wooden bead along one edge of the shelf that Blackwood said could house and hide a hinge. There was no obvious handle or mechanism on the other side, so I scanned the books looking for something that might stand out. I broke into a beaming smile when I found it: a pristine edition of Through the Looking Glass, Carroll’s fantastical tale of a girl’s adventures beyond a mirror! What a delightful, and entirely appropriate, choice.

Pulling the edition from the shelf caused the casement to ease open, inward, revealing another surprise: the two stage mirrors from Foedemere’s performance that had so fooled us what seems so long ago. We had come full circle.

A final door stood before us, silence from behind it. We opened it with care and found what we had for so long sought. Despite expecting it I gasped in shock and surprise.

A large, mostly empty room was dominated by a glorious Colopinto mirror standing just off centre. The floor was marked with large white striations which might indicate compass points, and there were some very precise chalk markings with scrawled writing below each. The mirror stood angled along one of these marks.

On the floor there was also an enormous blood stain: the last remnants of Blackwood’s victim! I only wished Daphne were here, for I believe it was he who first posited the theory of a central mirror that controlled the web. Or was it Silas—or perhaps even Blackwood! All I am confident in is that it was not me.

Silas was beaming, his insistence that we return to the house rewarded.

Blackwood crouched to read the chalk marking nearest the bloodstain, finding the confirmation: “It is a series of coordinates, and my name,” he reported matter-of-factly.

“And here is Etihad!” Silas pointed, “And all of the others—Langbrook, Foster, Gordon, and more.”

“What line does the mirror stand on now?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“The Tower,” Silas read with wonder and worry. “We have to go through though we may already be too late.”

I pointed to an empty crate that had escaped the gentlemen’s attention in the excitement. “You’re right. And it seems you were right about the dynamite.”

Stepping through the mirror was unlike anything I can explain. The closest I can come to articulating it is to compare it to the first time I tried the miraculous Columbian powder. For a few moments everything was wrong, out of place, warped and overwhelming. After the ugly, nauseous twist came that great clarity and opening of my mind as I found myself inside the Tower of London. This was impossible, of course. And yet here I was.

Silas stepped through next, following the method Foedemere had used: a careful movement of the hand and arm, followed by dipping the head and getting through as fast as possible. He staggered as he emerged before a smile settled upon his lips as he looked toward me. “My whole body feels like it has pins-and-needles,” he marvelled, “And the blood is returning rather painfully.”

“Incredible, is it not?” I grinned.

Blackwood was not so fortunate. He hesitated at the critical juncture and stumbled through half-here half-there. He immediately collapsed to the floor, every muscle twitching, eyes bulbous and blank, like someone who had tried too much of the aforementioned powder. “Cut in half, he was cut in half!” Blackwood was repeating over and over, reliving the horror of the last person he had seen travel through the mirror.

Silas quickly righted him and calmed the poor man who had cold sweat pouring from his every pore. “I’m alright, I’m alright,” Blackwood whispered, more to convince himself than anything.

I was surprised to find everything looked the same. “Shouldn’t we be reversed?” I asked Silas.

“Yes, we should…but…” Silas went into that deep focus mode that he has while he tried to understand.

I took the opportunity to scan the room we found ourselves in. It was packed tightly with what can only be described as treasure: gold shields, Ming vases, chests heaving with silver and gems. A once in a lifetime opportunity lay before me.

“Silas do you think anyone would notice if I…” I said, lifting a bejewelled brooch.

“Yes, Gideon, I think they would,” Silas scoffed.

With a regretful sigh I returned the priceless object. “Why is the writing on the door indecipherable? ‘MOOR ERUSAERT’” I haltingly read.

Silas glanced over and a lightbulb went off. “Of course! From our perspective everything is ‘right’,” Silas exclaimed.

“Not mine,” Blackwood groaned.

“We perceive everything as correct,” Silas continued holding his hand aloft. “My ring is on the my left hand, as expected. But the world has been reversed!”

“‘TREASURE ROOM’!” I blurted. “Oh my goodness this will make things complicated.”

“Yes—we must do what we need to and get back before the portal closes,” Silas nodded.

“Then let us move.” I picked up a gem-laden, Prussian-looking baselard and tucked it into my belt (thinking that perhaps I could keep this one treasure?), whilst Silas took a rather more practical looking dirk. Blackwood clambered to his feet and reached for a large silvered axe. Once he had it in his grip I could see his body settle and face relax somewhat: here was a man that needed a tool in his hand before he could feel ready.

“It is good to see you back, Jack,” I said, realising as I did that this was the first time I had addressed him by his name. Perhaps I had finally forgiven him for the Peabody incident.

We moved into a stone corridor. Poor old Blackwood insisted we take the passage to the left, despite it being an obvious dead-end. “I remember the map clearly,” he insisted, “This is the way to the Crown Jewels.”

I placed a gentle arm on his shoulder and guided him the other way. “You are going to have to learn to think in reverse, Mr Blackwood.” Blackwood scowled, then crouched and traced the map in the dust of the floor. Silas quickly swapped it in his head and led us away.

We followed Silas down a long stone corridor, then right into a shorter one with a door at the far end and another on the left. “‘KEEP…ER’S RES…IDENCE’” I read, stumbling over my words slightly as I reversed the letters.

“We should check in here—there might be weapons,” Blackwood said. Inside we found no weapons but we did find the Keeper himself, bound and gagged on a small army cot. His eyes were open and alert, so I motioned to him for silence as I undid his gag and Silas sliced through the bindings.

“Jolly good. And who might you be?”

“There’s no time to explain, but those that bound you are trying to blow up the Crown Jewels, or something like that,” Silas quickly summarised.

Our new friend introduced himself as Captain Ernest Borgnine, and handily confirmed he was an ex-military man of some standing (Blackwood later informed us that all the ‘Beefeaters’ were ex-army for ‘reasons’). He agreed to accompany us on our mission, but alas was weaponless. I could see in his eyes this was a temporary alliance at best, for we too were most unexpected trespassers in his domain.

We raced down the corridor another iron-bound heavy oak door. “Sir can you unlock this please?” I asked the Captain.

“I’m afraid not—for they have my keys,” he said ruefully

“Then sir, please avert your eyes for a moment,” I said half-jokingly, then proceeded to unpick the far-too-simple-for-what-it-was-protecting lock.

Blackwood carefully pushed it open.

A large floor-to-ceiling cage houses the Crown Jewels in a hexagonal chamber

Inside was a sight I will never forget: at least one Colopinto and half-a-dozen of his thugs surrounded the casement that held the Crown Jewels, cautiously placing bundles of dynamite into the structure. I caught a glimpse of the rim of a top hat which surely was Foedemere, deeply involved.

Barely a heartbeat later Blackwood just as carefully pulled the door closed again. “We can’t fight them without risking disaster,” he whispered, “But how can we stop them?”

There was a moment of silence whilst we all thought furiously. Then I had it. “They will have to allow time for their escape back to Overton Farm. We must retreat and hide inside the Keeper’s room, let them pass as they make their escape, then hasten to the Jewels and extinguish every last wick! It is a terrible risk but we have no other choice. They will get away scot-free, but it’s either that or the Crown Jewels are destroyed.”

“Yes! That could work,” Blackwood said, already withdrawing toward the room. I could see Silas was still processing all this as we loosely bound Captain Borgnine again so as not to alert the Colopinto’s should they check the room.

“Wait!” Silas hissed, stopping us. “If they get away through the mirror, they will move it immediately to stop any one from following and we will be stuck forever as mirrors of ourselves!”

Oh my. Silas was right.

The Keeper looked completely bemused. “Captain there is no time to explain,” Silas rushed on, “But both the interlopers and us got here by…unusual means, and we need to ensure we can get back the same way. If we leave you, and you let them past, do you think you can get into the room and disable the dynamite?”

“I will do my utmost, sir!” he declared with great bravery. “Though I have never been the same since Rourke’s Drift,” he added wistfully.

“Very good. Gideon, Blackwood—we will need to stop the Colopinto’s from coming through so the Captain’s men can arrest them. All we need do it threaten to destroy the mirror and trap them here forever more. It will at the very least give them pause by which time this should all be over.”

“But Silas…what chance does Captain Borgnine have? There were dozens of explosives in there, and on short fuses I am sure! His bravery notwithstanding, it is a suicide mission.”

“What choice do we have, Gideon? Do you want to be forever more living in reverse?”

“There must be another way! We cannot leave this brave man to decide the fate of England alone!”

“I agree with the lady,” Blackwood said (forgetting my name in the heat of the moment?). “This is our responsibility. Let’s go in there and take them down!”

“No Blackwood!” I hissed. “They would stop us before we could stop them. There may be another way…Yes! There is! Listen: so long as the mirror at Lea Bridge is secure, there are the other mirrors we could use to get back! We already know where they all are, so we would just need to reposition the Lea Bridge one—perhaps Daphne could help?—and step through another.”

Silas frowned, his mind ticking over furiously.

“Silas, it will work! Etihad owes us a favour for getting him off a murder charge! We can use his mirror!”

Silas stared at the floor, then abruptly nodded. “Very well. But we must first destroy the mirror here to stop them from escaping. We only have minutes—let’s go!”

I could have hugged him.

We sprinted back to the Treasure Room and, to my frustration, Blackwood started carefully considering how to best dismantle the frame before working on the mirror.

“Just smash it, Mr Blackwood!” I cried. He ignored me, shifting the mirror toward some tiger-skin rugs so as to lower it gently. “Do it!” I cried, before suddenly grabbing the nearest invaluable object (a weighty statuette of a naked Aphrodite if I was not mistaken) and hurled it toward the mirror.

I missed. As Silas glared at me Blackwood proceeded as planned, laying the mirror flat then cracking it with a rapid stomp from his well-shod feet. It shattered instantly, and our fate was sealed.

We got back to the Keeper’s room in the nick of time. Seconds later we heard the intruders withdrawing as we expected. The moment we judged they had rounded the corridor we ran back to the Crown Jewels with Captain Borgnine in tow.

For the second time in short succession an indelible sight was etched on my overtaxed mind: four trails of living flame were racing toward the Jewel case, ready to ignite the layered dynamite and end both us and the Monarchy. With a cry we each dived for one wick, smothering it with out very bodies. Remarkably, and against all the odds, we succeeded.

Or so we thought.

A final wick suddenly became visible and only inches from its destination! “No!” Silas and I dived across the room, both landing atop the fateful string. I closed my eyes expecting the worst as Blackwood and the Captain cried in alarm.

Realising I was not dead, I opened my eyes and slowly lifted to find the smothered wick smouldering harmlessly on the stone floor.

“We did it, Gideon! We did it!” Silas cried.

“Oh my god,” I laughed hysterically, “We did indeed!”

Whilst I still had adrenalin to burn I sprung to my feet and ran to the door. I quicky disabled the lock, removing a crucial pin from the barrel to trap the Colopinto crew on the far side.

“Sir, you need to alert the guards to find and arrest the intruders,” Blackwood said quickly.

“There are no guards, or not many, at this time of night,” Captain Borgnine advised.

“No guards? What do you mean??” I gasped.

“It’s night, madam,” the Captain said with well-hidden exasperation. “But there are guards at the main gates and your thieves won’t be able to escape any other way. Once they are spotted by my men I am sure further help will be called for.”

“This is your Tower to protect sir,” Silas nodded respectfully. “So if you are satisfied then so to are we. We should lock ourselves somewhere safe until such help arrives.”

Captain Borgnine concurred, leading us to what turned out to be a small mess-hall. “Tea, madam?” he offered, and I gratefully accepted.

Some time later the cavalry did indeed arrive after the alarum was raised, and the shouts and sounds of scuffles (and worse) echoed through the Tower.

“I hope they spared Foedemere,” Silas muttered. We were all exhausted despite the tea.

“Why is that?”

“Because he may be the only one who can get us back to reality.”

As we considered this glumly, a knock at the door finally brought the Tower Guard. They were relieved to find the Captain alive and healthy.

“Sir?” they asked expectantly, glancing our way.

“Arrest these three,” Borgnine said promptly.

And that is how we ended up imprisoned in the Black Tower, where I have scrawled these notes whilst we await SI Williamson, who surely will secure our immediate release. Surely.