The workshop was colder than she remembered. Dust lay over the workbench, a cracked window admitted the November air, and the empty corner where her father once kept his chair seemed larger than the rest of the room. Clara paused on the threshold before entering, startled by the force of her grief. James remained outside until she invited him in, and he said nothing when she touched the mark her father had made on the bench to measure her height as a child.
"He used to count the seconds between the church bell and the harbor gun," she said after a while. "He claimed that if two people were willing to listen closely enough, even a crowded town could agree on something true." James looked at the row of half-finished brass rings near the window. "My brother used to count them too," he admitted. "He never understood why I preferred orders to experiments. I wish I had listened to him more."
They found the ordinary account books first, then several volumes of trial figures written in Edmund's compact hand. A page for W-17 recorded thirty days of testing in both warm and cold conditions. Each day's entries were accompanied by a mark from Pritchard, the examiner, in purple ink. The last line noted delivery of the finished instrument to Wexford Maritime Supply on 16 August 1815, with its regulator intact. The document was valuable, but it did not explain what happened after delivery.
As they were searching, a familiar voice called from the alley. Thomas Briggs, a former apprentice who had stayed away since the scandal, stood in the doorway holding a cap in both hands. He was thin, tired, and plainly terrified. "Miss Clara," he said, "I was told there were people in the shop. I thought I ought to come before anything was taken." Clara could have reminded him that he had once refused to speak when her father needed him. Instead she asked whether he knew who had received W-17 at the company storehouse.
Thomas's face changed. He looked toward James's uniform coat and the duke's secretary seated at the back table. "I signed for the crate," he admitted. "Not the delivery to the Navy, mind you. I signed for its return to the company workshop after the trials. Sir Lionel wanted it examined before it went aboard." Clara felt the floor grow uncertain beneath her feet. "My father believed it went directly to the ship."
"I know," Thomas whispered. "I was told it was an ordinary inspection. Then a man came down from London with a box of parts and instructed me to remove the movement from the original casing. When I asked why, he said the new one would be easier to maintain. I had no reason to think they intended to send that other movement to the Meridian. Not then." He lowered his head. "After the wreck, I was told my apprenticeship certificate would be destroyed if I contradicted the company. My mother was ill, and I was afraid."