The Watchmaker’s Hand

His dark eyes are keen, and a comma of hair falls over his right forehead. His brows are furrowed as he looks toward the portion of his parlor sealed off by a glass wall. It is the sterile side of the room, the laboratory. This hermetical sealing is similar to the finest watchmaking facilities, which are kept breathlessly clean, out of fear that dust — or far worse, a bit of sand or grit — might make its way into the works and render the timepiece useless.

Interrupting Hale’s reverie, Gilligan now said, “You want, I can still try for the mike.” A brief pause. “I’d have to charge you more because of the risk, of course.”

They had debated sneaking a transmitter into the room. Without a metal detector at the door, it would be easy to smuggle in a bug. But Rhyme or someone else would probably sweep the place — especially now that he knew he was the target of a killer.

“No.”

Hale pushed the Play triangle once again.

Now Gilligan has turned from Rhyme and is walking along the row of bookshelves. The camera pans across the titles. Some are books on the law and police procedure, but more are titles devoted to the sciences, notably chemistry, physics, geology and other environmental subjects. One is The Analysis and Classification of Mud on the Eastern Seaboard.

The camera pans back. After mundane footage, the video goes black.

Hale wished Gilligan had gotten a scan of the evidence boards, but he was apparently too nervous to do so.

As Hale sat back, reflecting on what he’d just seen, sipping coffee, Gilligan was looking at the timepieces.

The clepsydra, in particular, grabbed his attention. The instrument was about eighteen inches high. The frame was of ebony and the top and bottom disks featured brass buttons depicting the signs of the zodiac.

“You make that?” Gilligan asked.

“The clepsydra? No. I found it at an antiques store and liked the lines.”

Gilligan asked, “Clep... what?”

“Clepsydra. Predecessor of the hourglass. Same principal, measuring the passage of time, but with dripping water. They predate the sand models by two thousand years. There were problems with them — they couldn’t be used on ships because of the rocking. Condensation was an issue too. Hourglasses like those” — he pointed to two on a shelf nearby — “came about around eight hundred ad. They were inventions of the church, for timing mass and services.”

“It doesn’t look like sand.” Gilligan was squinting.

“No, most of them didn’t use sand. Pulverized marble or burnt eggshell were more accurate. This one? It’s tin oxide. Hourglasses gave us the term ‘knots,’ for speed.”

“Yeah?” Gilligan asked. “I’ve got a boat. Nice one.”

Which I might have bought him, thought Hale.

“Sailors tied knots into a rope and then fixed it to a log. They threw the rope overboard and used an hourglass to see how many knots flipped through their fingers for a given period of time.”

“Cool. I’ll tell my boating buddies.”

Hale finished his coffee, washed the cup and dried his hands. “You spare fifteen minutes now? I have an idea — it’ll be good for both of us — and I want your thoughts.”

Gilligan looked at his digital watch. Cheap. No judgment from Hale. A watch like this might drift.5 seconds a day; a million-dollar mechanical model typically loses twice that. “Sure, I guess.”

Hale once again checked the monitors. Clear. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and the two men stepped outside. Hale set the locks and they continued down the dusty cobblestones.

“Graveyard,” Gilligan muttered.

“What?”

The detective waved his arm, indicating the dilapidated buildings lining the cul-de-sac. “They look like big tombstones.”

They walked around the chain barrier and onto the quiet street, so typical of this part of Greenwich Village.

“Better if we take one car. Yours?”

Gilligan said, “I’ve got to be at One PP in a half hour.”

“I have a meeting too, uptown. I’ll take the train.”

They climbed into the sweet-smelling Lexus, which was spotless. The mileage would be low. Maybe Hale had bought him this, rather than the boat. Maybe a portion of each.

As Gilligan started the engine, Hale asked, “The GPS is disconnected, right?”

“Yeah. I made sure.”

“Head south. Then east. We’re going to Webber and Blenheim.”

After twenty minutes of negotiating the narrow downtown streets, which grew increasingly deserted, they arrived at the intersection. A vacant lot took up half the block. Mostly dirt, some clumps of grass. A dead tree. Trash. In a few places, the sunken brownstone remains of tenements, typical of nineteenth-century Lower East Side.

“What’s here?”

“Part of my plans for Rhyme.”

The detective pulled the sleek car to the curb — carefully; he’d be afraid of scratching the wheels. “He really is an arrogant son of a bitch, you know.”

“No doubt about that.”

They climbed from the car and walked to the six-foot-high chain-link fence around the lot. The gate had been stretched open, so it was easy to slip through.