Part Two.
Pick.
Pick.
Pick?
The word gained buoyancy in Quaint’s mind
and he clung onto it, whilst simultaneously trying to avoid any allegories that
alluded to drowning: one of the foremost things on his mind. All right, Cornelius,
he told himself: focus on the manacles. Rallying his concentration (arguably
the weakest aspect of his character) into an alliance with his train of thought
(one of his strongest aspects when called for), Quaint gathered all the
information he could about the manacles binding his wrists.
Even though his fingertips were numb from
the cold, he felt the edges of the iron cuffs, tracing their path. Standard
police issue, if he wasn’t mistaken. Mayhew’s Foundry, based out of Scotland. He
could tell by the imprint of the letter ‘M’ stamped onto the iron. He knew
Mayhew’s well – an occasion in his past had led him to be placed in them by
London’s constabulary (mistaken identity, he swore blind). But he shook that
memory from his head. It wasn’t his past he was interested in; it was the
future – more specifically, the distinct possibility of a lack of one. Now,
what was it about Mayhew’s cuffs? No, they weren’t standard police issue. Not
anymore, he corrected himself as he recalled something that he’d heard recently.
Something about a faulty batch some months back. Mayhew’s had maintained the
Metropolitan Police contract almost since its inception, but there had been a few
recent escapes from custody, which led to an immediate cancellation of the
supply. It turned out that the metal pin joining the manacles together could be
easily pushed out with the right tool, freeing the captive and making the cuffs
nothing more than tarnished jewellery. The cancellation of the contract ended
up flooding London’s backstreet markets with iron by the bucket-load, snatched
up at bargain prices by the blacksmiths. A pair of Mayhew’s could be bought for
a handful of pennies. But none of that mattered. It was the central pin that
Quaint was looking for.
He found it, and pressed it with
all his strength. It was a good thing that his extremities were so numb; he
didn’t feel the pain - but he would surely feel it later once he’d thawed out,
he told himself. And then he smiled. If he was thinking about the future, it meant
that he was just about confident enough to pull this off. But taking into
account that he had always shared a somewhat fractious relationship with luck
at the best of times, what were the odds that these manacles were made by
Mayhew’s? That was the real question.
In his fifty-plus years he had witnessed
his fair share of luck, and the majority had been of the bad variety. He rarely
lingered overlong on those memories, choosing to fill his life with as many
good ones as he could find, hoping they would address the balance. But he was
deluding himself. Bad luck always won out over good, at least where Cornelius
Quaint was concerned. During the trade-off of bad for good, inevitably some good
memories had drifted from his grasp. Beyond his ability to recall in any
detail, but notable by their absence collectively, like a single dark cloud in
an otherwise cloudless sky. It was as if his mind had reached its full
capacity, and in order to accommodate new memories, he would have to sacrifice some
of his old ones. The only problem was that he had no choice which ones were to
be lost, and the longer that he lived, the more room he had to make within his cluttered
mind. Childhood friends, the name of the street where he grew up, the
housekeepers and maids – he could recall none of them anymore. He was facing
certain death, wondering if his life would pass before his eyes. He certainly
hoped not. Over the past few years so much of his past had slipped through his
fingers that he swore it would never happen again…
Will Cornelius manage to survive?
Find out right here on Monday 5th 2012 !!!
To help Cornelius escape head on over to his Facebook page for a chance to win a free copy of the latest Cornelius Quaint adventure, The Lazarus Curse!
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