A monster, to be sure, but not the Bronze Devil. Completely at odds with the surroundings, the white-faced clown standing in the room’s doorway opened its big red mouth and cackled.
The clown wore garish red and white striped baggy pajamas. White makeup coated his face like a thick application of plaster. Bright red circles turned his cheeks into a pair of Japanese flags. His lips as well were painted bright red. A striped red and white cap covered the top of its head.
Encountering these strange events one after the other, each one odder than the next, Yoshio again felt as if he had fallen into a waking dream. He stared blankly back at the clown. The clown finally stopped laughing.
“So, one of the Street Gang Irregulars. Cat got your tongue? You must be wondering where you are. This is the underground Kingdom of the Bronze Devils. I serve as their executive secretary and translator and all-around man Friday. I am the only human being, the only man of flesh and bone you will find here.
“That means there is more than one Bronze Devil?”
That was the question Yoshio intended to ask. But when he opened his mouth to speak, what emerged was the hoarse screeching of scraping metal and meshing gears, sounds he could not comprehend himself. Ah, so Yoshio’s voice as well had been transformed into the language of these bronze beings.
“Indeed. The one that fell from the smokestack and broke into pieces was a mere mannequin. The real thing sits safe and sound deep within the earth.”
Apparently, this clown could comprehend Yoshio’s creaking, squeaking voice.
“Then why dress me up in this outfit?” Yoshio rasped. “What is the reason behind all this?”
The clown answered with a smirk. “Your just dues for chasing the Devil up the smokestack. Making you a member of the Devil’s underground band will certainly keep you from causing the kind of trouble you have up till now. Right now, we’re planning to bring your boss—that’s Kogoro Akechi—down here and turning him into a bronze being too. Ha ha ha!”
As he listened, able to stop and assess the nature of his predicament, Yoshio sighed in relief. He hadn’t been turned into a mechanical doll inside and out. He’d only been dressed up in bronze armor. His head was covered with a mask from the neck up. A device positioned in front of his mouth translated his voice into that sound of grating gears. The clockwork mechanism embedded in the midsection of the bronze armor produced the constant whirr of meshing gears.
“So the Devil that fell from the smokestack was a double. At some point it must have switched places with the real thing. I didn’t see that coming.”
Ah, what a strange scene this was: a clown wearing a pointed cap and make-up thick as stucco, and a young man covered with bronze from head to toe. The two conversed like a couple of friends hanging out beneath the glow of a rusty red lamp.
“Heh, heh, heh. The magic of the Bronze Devils. A mystery that not even the famed Detected Akechi can unravel. Did you think a street kid like you could comprehend it in the slightest?”
‘Huh. So the Devil vanishing like smoke is the same sort of magic?”
“Of course. In the Kingdom of the Devils, that kind of magic is the most elementary. It barely scratches the surface of sorcery they have at their fingertips. You will see by and by. Having entered this realm, you will never return to the mundane human world, which leaves me free to tell you whatever you want to know. This world is home to incomparable museums of art, you know. For a long time now, the Devils have been collecting all kinds of artwork, enough to fill seven rooms to the brim. One of those rooms is the clock room, which has become home to all manner of timepieces. If there is a famous or unusual timepiece anywhere in the world, it will fall into our hands. I’ll give you a tour of those seven rooms, but first, let us repair to the dining hall. You should be quite famished by now.”
The clown motioned to Yoshio to follow him. Yoshio complied. Clanking along like a mechanical doll was discomfiting in the extreme, but given the suit of bronze armor he was wearing, that was the only way he could move around.
The hallway that ran between the rooms more resembled a stone tunnel. Ten paces in, the dark tunnel forked to the left and right. To the left, a sturdy wooden door blocked any further progress.
The clown again gestured with a sweep of the arm, as if to say, “Open the door and take a look.”
Yoshio calmly extended his stiff bronze fingers and pulled open the heavy door. He peered into the big stone room. The Bronze Devil itself loomed up before him like a bronze statue and glared down at him.
Yoshio started and slammed the door shut.