Fiendish Schemes Read Free Page B

scale. With an eye on the rugged seascape ahead, Crowcroft began a series of delicate adjustments.
    The fury of the waves dashing against the rocks kept the straggling crowd at a respectful distance, watching as the lighthouse picked its way over the seaweed-festooned boulders. What had been felt as tolerable rocking and swaying amongst those of us on the bridge, while the lighthouse had crept over level ground, now transmuted to a harsher jostling. That, combined with the sight of the watery horizon, turned green some of our party’s faces, as though their bearers were trapped aboard an actual ship heaving from crest to trough.
    Captain Crowcroft at last brought the lighthouse to its appointed berth, a great angled outcropping the width of the tower’s base. The iron legs, having transported their burden this far, now grappled the stone, splitting apart its brine-soaked crevices until the claws were so embedded that no storm tide could have swept us from this perch.
    “That should do.” Crowcroft signaled to his men, who began returning the various levers and controls to their starting positions. The last, the one that my own hands had been set upon, was brought upright again, the lighthouse shuddering with the expulsion of pressure from its boilers. As one who tires from strenuous exertions, the tower settled into its resting place. The sheer tonnage of its construction deflected the rocky promontory by a few degrees, the bridge’s floor once comfortably leveled as Captain Crowcroft tapped the controls with a gentle fingertip.
    The clouds of steam were vast enough to momentarily occlude the bridge’s windows. All was at peace once more. Wind dissipated the white mist, the long roll of the breakers the only sound that came to our ears. As the ocean lapped at the tower’s base, I brought my face close to the windows again, looked up, and saw the sentinel gulls wheeling in the purpling sky, heralds to this prodigy that Man’s craft and cleverness had erected amongst them.

    “WOULD it be inopportune of me—I realize, of course, that you have weightier matters to attend—but might I enquire as to whether you’ve had a moment to consider the subject of our previous conversation?”
    Lord Fusible peered at me, as those do whose memories as well as vision are befogged with intemperance. But desperation had prompted me to put my question to him. As one such as I had but rare occasion to enter his lordship’s concentric circles of power and influence, I had no idea as to when a similar opportunity for supplication might arise.
    “Arrhghmm.” With a deep phlegmy rattle, Fusible cleared his throat. “Much to consider. Much to consider, my dear chap.” He nodded, sinking his chin into the wattle of fat protruding above his collar. “But you can be assured—with every confidence—that those matters of which we spoke . . .” He swayed a bit, as though bringing forth words from his sotted brain were an effort epic in scope. “Soon as I get back to London—the absolute soonest I arrive, I promise you—all of that will receive my undivided attention. Have no fear.”
    Naturally, every fear rushed upon me, at least in regard to receiving any assistance from Lord Fusible and his Phototrope Limited partners. I could see that Fusible now had not the faintest idea who I was, and even when eventually sober, would have no greater idea then. Having been paraded before his guests at the lighthouse’s launch party, I had concluded my usefulness to him. This was not the first time I had opportunity for the morose reflection that wealth so elevates men, that the rest of their species appears to them but as ants scuttling about on the ground. Indeed, Lord Fusible could have had no more withering and dismissive a regard for me if he were still ensconced in the bridge of the lighthouse, now looming above us.
    Those for whom he did have a use were his personal attendants, now draping a fur-collared cloak about his shoulders. The