The Lazarus Engine – Chapter 10
The Mechanical Hand
The prosthetist’s workshop was located in a narrow alley off Cheapside, above a tannery that stank of chemicals and decay. Thorne had learned of the place from Crowne, who had whispered the address between sips of gin.
“His name is Ezra Pound,” Crowne had said. “Not the poet. The mechanic. He builds limbs for wealthy invalids. And for people who don’t want to be seen.”
The door was unlocked. The stairs were dark.
Thorne lit a match. Gray followed close behind, her truncheon raised.
The workshop occupied the entire top floor. It was a cathedral of brass and leather: artificial arms hanging from hooks, mechanical legs posed on stands, glass eyes staring from shelves. In the center of the room, on a workbench, lay a hand.
A mechanical hand.
Its fingers were articulated brass, each joint a tiny gear. The palm was engraved with the same snake-and-hourglass symbol Thorne had seen on the engine. And from the wrist, a series of copper wires trailed to a small power source—a battery, still warm.
“This is new,” Gray said. “Still being tested.”
Thorne picked up the hand. It was heavier than he expected. The fingers moved when he touched them, curling inward like a dying spider.
“March’s design,” he said. “Or Charlotte’s. The hand is a weapon. The fingers can deliver a precise electrical shock—enough to stop a human heart.”
“From a distance?”
“No. Up close. The killer had to touch Wells. Had to place his hand on Wells’s chest.” Thorne set the hand down. “That’s why the carriage was locked from inside. The killer didn’t need to escape. He was already inside when Wells locked the door.”
Gray’s eyes widened. “The killer was Wells himself?”
“The killer used Wells’s own hand. Or rather, a hand that looked like Wells’s. A prosthesis, worn over the killer’s real hand. Wells thought he was shaking hands with a friend. Instead, he was shaking hands with death.”
Thorne walked to a desk covered in blueprints. He unrolled one and studied it.
The drawing showed a human hand, dissected. Nerves, muscles, bones—and overlaid on top, a brass exoskeleton. The title read: “The Lazarus Grip. For the Resurrection of the Dead and the Termination of the Living.”
“Termination,” Gray said softly. “He’s not just trying to bring back the dead. He’s creating a way to kill without a weapon. Without a trace. Without evidence.”
“A perfect murder,” Thorne said. “Every time.”
He looked at the signature at the bottom of the blueprint: Victor March, 1849.
“But March is dead. Someone is building his designs. Someone with access to his notes, his materials, his vision.”
“Charlotte,” Gray said.
“Or the man with the limp. The one Finch saw at the station.” Thorne rolled up the blueprint and tucked it into his coat. “We need to find Ezra Pound. The prosthetist. He built this hand.”
Gray gestured to the empty workshop. “He’s not here.”
“Then he’s hiding. Or he’s dead.”
They searched the workshop for another hour. In a locked cabinet behind a bookcase, Thorne found a ledger—Pound’s client list. Most of the names were strangers: wealthy invalids, accident victims, old soldiers. But one name leaped off the page.
“Victor March – custom prosthesis – left hand – delivered 1849.”
Beneath it, in a different handwriting: “Collected by C. March, 1855.”
“Charlotte picked up her father’s hand,” Thorne said. “She’s been wearing it. Using it. The drag mark at the station—the limp—that wasn’t a foot. It was a hand. She carries it with her. She puts it on when she needs to kill.”
Gray looked at the mechanical hand on the workbench. Its fingers twitched.
“Then she’s been here. Recently.”
A floorboard creaked behind them.
They spun around.
A man stood in the doorway. He was old, stooped, with wild white hair and a leather apron. His left arm ended in a brass prosthetic—cruder than the hand on the bench, but functional.
“Ezra Pound,” Thorne said.
The old man’s eyes were wide with fear. “You shouldn’t be here. She comes at night. She comes for the hands.”
“Charlotte?”
“The daughter. She takes them. The hands I built for her father. She says they still remember how to kill.” Pound’s voice cracked. “She says the hands are hungry.”
“When does she come?”
Pound looked at the window. The fog pressed against the glass.
“Tonight,” he whispered. “She comes tonight.”
The gas lamp flickered.
And somewhere in the alley below, a brass hand began to tick.