Advisory: Contains razor-tongued criminal banter, safecracking, and profane outbursts during a violent nor’easter. Depicts manipulation, betrayal, and law-enforcement injury. Includes slang and threats. For readers of atmospheric, character-driven true crime with moral ambiguity.
“THE CLOCKMAKER’S TEMPEST, OR: HOW SETH THOMAS’ DROWNED GEARS TICKED FORTH A DEVIL’S CARILLON”
By Ignatius “Inkwell” Pike, Special Correspondent to the Netherworld
UPPER CHATEAUGAY, N.Y.— The heavens themselves tore asunder Thursday last, vomiting forth a Boschian carnival of wind and wrath upon our fair precincts! A maelstrom born in the icy bowels of Canadian hells descended upon Chateaugay Lake’s glassy bosom, transforming that bucolic haven into a theater of splintered opulence and God’s own fury. Yet this humble scribe avers: The true tempest blew not from the sky, but from the black hearts of men.
A NOR’EASTER
(“The wind’s got teeth tonight,” the dock-boy muttered, pocketing silver to look the other way. “Teeth and a grudge.”)
Seth Thomas—horologist to tycoons, timekeeper to empires—kept more than springs in his vaults. The storm made tidy work of it. His boathouse? Kindling. His 35-foot Lucifer’s Parlor launch? Sleeping with the carp. But the true prize—a brass-bound strongbox fat with Bullion Certificates, the sort that grease palms from Albany to Sing Sing—had vanished before the first raindrop fell.
Coincidence? Bah! This gutter-rag howls CONSPIRACY!
MALEFACTORS AT THE WHIRLWIND’S EYE
Enter: “Gruntin’” Pete Laughlin, a cutthroat dandy with Derringer eyes and a suit cut from coffin-lining. His crew—a one-armed safecracker called “The Jesuit,” the hulking Finn Härkä (“Ox” to the illiterate), and the razor-lipped widow DuVray—had haunted the Upper Lake’s boardinghouses for a fortnight, posing as tubercular vacationers. Their alibis dissolved faster than sugar in gin.
The Jesuit, post-arrest, sneered: “Ain’t no law against admiring architecture.”
The Sheriff, through bruised knuckles: “There’s laws against laughing while your alibi burns.”
A CARETAKER’S CONVENIENT MISFORTUNE
Enterprising readers recall the injured Mr. Robinson, Thomas’ caretaker—a man whose loyalty stretched precisely as far as $3,800 in untraceable gold notes. Interrogation revealed:
- The storm’s approach was telegraphed by noon.
- Thomas’ launch never left its dock.
- Robinson’s “head wound” reeked of rye whiskey and cowardice.
DuVray, during her escape (foiled by a constable’s lucky boot): “Men always forget—hurricanes ain’t half as mean as a woman who can’t cash a check.”
CLOCKWORK VENGEANCE
Here lies the meat of the mystery, citizens! For Thomas, that hoary titan of gears, had rigged his vault with a devilish alarm: a pressure-plate linked to twelve modified clock towers along the lakeshore. Disturb the box, and the bells toll not the hour, but a dirge for thieves.
The storm tripped the mechanism.
At 8:47 PM, as winds shredded Sawyer’s cottage, every steeple from Malone to Dannemora erupted in cacophony—a metallic shriek heard ’round the county. Härkä, mid-looting, dropped the strongbox and clutched his ears. The Jesuit’s sacraments turned profane. And the widow? She smiled.
Later, in her cell: “Bells or no, honey—I’d have split that swag six ways from Sunday. Even cut the Ox in.”
Deputy: “Six?”
DuVray, lighting a stolen cigarette: “Hell, the wind gets a share. Did the heavy lifting.”
CALM AS A COCKED HAMMER
The strongbox? Recovered, empty. The villains? Jailed, save “Gruntin’” Pete, who vanished—some say into the storm itself, a new apostle of chaos. Thomas? Retains lawyers, not reporters.
And the clock towers? Silent now. But mark this scribe’s words:
Time never forgets. Time never forgives. And in these parts, time’s got a name—and it’s fixin’ to strike again.
FURTHER OUTRAGES at Page 6: DANZIG’S BUTCHER SHOP MYSTERY: Human Bones in the Bratwurst!
What mysteries of Chateaugay Lake haunt you?