The man was odd. There was no questioning that. He wore a top hat with spectacles, and a gold chain dangling from his waistcoat. To one of the modern day, you might say that he appeared as everything a man from the nineteenth century would look like; most likely in some fantastic cinematic invention, involving a scandal and a chase through a steam engine. He did not, however, give any remote sign or recognition of the fashion trends of the nineteen-twenties, in which he currently stood.
The girl in the blue dress watched him from within the safety of the doorway of a nearby warehouse that housed a speak-easy in the nighttime. There were but a few daylight drinkers in the club at the moment, and she had taken leave from her cleaning to take notice of the man outside. He, however, did not so much as spare her a glance as he hurried through the streets.
“Hey Rosie, what’cha lookin’ at?” Agnes sang, appearing out of nowhere to stand at Rose’s shoulder. The sudden noise gained them the brief attention of some half-shot at the bar.
“That man looks awful funny, don’t you think so?” Rose pointed, turning to her friend.
“What man?” Agnes scoffed, raising her hands to her hips. Sure enough, when Rose turned back to the streets, they were empty. She hummed to herself.
“Well he was here a minute ago. Musta’ run off somewhere.” she decided. Her eyes then lit up, “You shoulda seen ‘im, Aggy, he had on this big top hat like ‘e was in a picture or somethin’!” Agnes crossed her arms, conscious of the handful of customers within earshot.
“Well ‘e ain’t here no more; now that’s back ta’ work with you.” she lectured; “Prims wants this place spick an’ spam before the night crowd gets here.”
“Sure thing, Aggy.”
“Good.” said Agnes, turning to walk away. Rose followed close behind, armed with a broom at her side. She brushed aside her short blond curls as Agnes returned to the cellar to check stocks. Though just as her hand grazed the doorknob, she looked over her shoulder to Rose in remembrance of some important detail that she had originally come up to say.
“Oh yeah, when you’re done with that, go change inta’ somethin’ nice; if that egg was as funny as you say, then we got us a real special guest commin’ tonight.” She winked.
-------------------------------------------
The special guest was a man named Charles Duleau; and he arrived in a car with Mr. Prims himself. Rose was serving drinks when the two of them walked through the door. Mr. Prims was known for his relations with clientele, but never had he arrived to the club with one. Rose was the first to notice their entrance, though looked away and returned to pouring drinks just quickly enough to convincingly act surprised to see the two as they approached her.
  “Two glasses a’ our finest, Rosie.” Mr. Prims grinned at her as he swept a seat for himself at the table closest where she stood. She finished with the businessmen and turned to pleasantly smile at her boss. As she scurried away, she could hear Prims behind her say to his companion “That doll there is Rosie Settley; she’s one a’ our best.”
“So what’s his name?” Agnes asked as she sidled up to Rose behind the bar.
“Charles Duleau.” Rose whispered, deciding on a bottle of Prims’s favorite sherry.
“Familiar name, huh?” Agnes chuckled, and Rose smiled to herself as she returned to the table. Prims and Duleau remained engaged with each other’s conversations well into the night. It was curious, the way neither seemed to notice the flappers dancing, or the band’s change of tunes. Through the evening they spoke. Just the two, as people flooded in and out in all varieties of states and fashion.
The People’s Club was like this. A backwater warehouse on the lower west side, it was a kind of midnight haven for oddballs, drinkers, and wayward businessmen trying to forget the day. It was a nice niche though, and good company could be found there at all hours, as well as good wine. Lit rather dimly in the dusk, music blared and laughter roared; Prims’s workers prided themselves on how well kept the place was. The furniture was always polished, the cellar always stocked, the seats always full. Most everyone came to the bar with a story, and Agnes and Rose were typically the only ones to ever hear them.
[Prims’s eyes gleamed from beneath his dark lashes, and despite the fine tailoring of his suit, it was Mr. Duleau’s sharp features that could be attested to as more handsome; especially when he smiled, which he did quite often that night.] Every so once in awhile, however, Duleau would jump in his seat, as if he had been on the wrong end of a lightning rod in a storm. When this occurred, Prims would laugh, and Duleau would force his features into serenity as he removed the gilded watch by its golden chain from within his coat.
Rose had been standing by Agnes once when this happened. Prims chuckled and leaned in to say something that made Duleau’s hardy laughter shine. She leaned close to her friend’s ear, “What do you think they’re talking about?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Agnes stopped what she had been doing to nod at Duleau, “but that Watch doesn’t work.”
“Are you sure?” Rose asked, already planning to walk over there in attempt to catch a glimpse of its jeweled face,
“Sure as day. I was goin’ past as he took it out; there were about four or five hands on it, and they were all frozen at the number two.”
“Maybe he hasn’t noticed.”
Agnes looked at her dryly, “We’ll tell him about it later.”
And so they did. At around a quarter to twelve, when many of the regulars deemed it time to return to their wives, Rose looked up from the bar to find the table the two men had occupied to now be clear of their presence as they disappeared into the cellar. Most likely they were browsing the various liquors for a befitting bottle to toast to. Still, Rose slipped her way to the stairwell behind them. Catching the door ever so slightly ajar, she fit her ear to the crack.
Their voices rang clear and loud from the foot of the steps. She recognized Prims’s voice, colliding fervidly with Duleau’s in the midst of an argument; over what, she could only make out to be some sort of theft. It was when she heard the sound of bottles breaking that she moved back from her eavesdropper’s perch to thrust open the door. Neither man noticed her at first; Duleau had his back to her and Prims lie pleading for him “-not to do this!” on the ground, wide-eyed and soaked in giggle juice.
“I’m sorry old friend,” Duleau said grimly, “But you’ve left me with no other choice.”
It was then that he held up his hand.
“Stop!” Rose shouted at the motion, at the sight of what he held, throwing herself down the stairs, though it was too late. A strong white light flashed before them, and Rose hid her eyes in her arm, while Duleau turned to her in shock. It was all over in an instant, and after it was, Duleau had either the nerve or the delerium to laugh. Rose looked up after the light returned to normality, lowering her arm to the chain at her neck and scanning the ground uselessly for Prims, whom she knew was gone. “What have you done?” she whispered. Duleau continued to laugh.
“It’s quite alright, dear.” he assured in as much awe of his own action as she was in dismay, and proceeded to smile his comely smile just for her. “You see,” he continued, “I am from the future.”
“The future?” Rose raised an eyebrow.
“Yes,” he said, “From the year 2261,  and I am what you would most likely call a ‘time traveler’ although in the future, there is a very special academy to become what we call a ‘Historian”’.
“You’re crazy.” she shook her head in disapproval, which only worked to feed Duleau’s grin.  “Oh, but it is the truth!” he said, and pulled a small, shimmering something from within his coat, which Rose could recognize by its gilding and long chain as the pocket watch that he had been looking to all night; the odd one that Agnes had called broken. He held it up with a pride that showed in the puffing of his chest, and went even as far as to hand it to her. Rose could see now that her friend was correct.
“This Watch is what you may think of as my time machine.” he said, “And that man I just arrested is what we call a Criminal of Time.”
“That didn’t look like an arrest.” she ran her thumb along the fine metal as she spoke; her tone was not that of shock, but of an accusational mother. At last, she looked back up. “You make yourself sound like some kinda cop or somethin’. You carry around a badge, too?” Duleau looked away for a moment before responding.
“My dear,” he chuckled, accepting the pocket-sized time machine from her outstretched hand, “the Council of Historians is so secretive in its workings that we carry nothing that may compromise us. We aren’t even meant to recognize each other, you see-” and he would have gone on if not for the impatient sigh that Rose made audible. She threw her weight to one leg and her head to the side. Without taking her eyes off of Duleau, she removed the golden band that encircled her forefinger, brought it to her lips and whispered two words, then held it out before her. With the recognition of her voice, a projection exploded into the air, throwing into display the image of Rose.
In this image however, long red framed her face, her green eyes, and she wore a gold and black uniform that could never be confused for anything from the twentieth century. Adjacent to the holograph was a waterfall of shimmering words: her height was 5’5, her date of birth was January 9th, and her name was claimed to be not Rose, but Juliet Hall. Duleau began to stammer.
“I-I don’t under-”
“Then allow me to explain.” began Juliet with all of the arrogant boredom of a viper to a crippled mouse. “My name, as is displayed on my badge, is Juliet Hall. I am a Second Rank Officer on the Council of Time. You see, dear, I am from the year 2782, and you sir, are being placed under arrest for the violation of the fourth, seventh, and twenty-ninth, Laws of Time that state against the theft, uncertified use, and impersonation of the tools of the Council, not to mention exposing yourself as a figure from a future year to one whom you believed to be from a year in your past. Since your crime committed in the June of 2261, your photograph and further information, Mr. Duleau, have been on the Council’s database in a file for cold cases, though that is to end in a few moments.” She carried herself in a regal advance as he retreated into himself, and into one of the shelves of wine. Her palm closed, and she replaced the ring to her finger as she stopped  in front of him. Her accent and slang a thing of the past.
“Of course I wouldn’t expect you to have noticed that I have already Pre-Set your Watch,” she went on, to his horror at the recollection of handing it to her himself, “so I’ll inform you that in exactly sixty seconds, you will find yourself in the lobby of the Cordelia Vint Maximum Security Prison for Criminals of Time, where you are to be registered and processed as a Time criminal to the fourth degree.”
“No, no; officer-” he tried for his smile once more, to no use.
“These are laws that have been taught at every school every year since 2153; they have been open to the public, and continuously drilled since the year 2153, so that even the least informed will have access to, and knowledge of these laws. In this suit, you will be aware that by breaking any one of these laws, you forfeit your democratic rights to trial by jury, and will face a minimum sentence of fifty years; all in the case that you speak of your travels to anyone of your year, or years prior. You are, however, granted the right to ask a single question of me before you Disappear.”
Looking positively ill, he asked, “What happened in the year 2153?”
“I am not permitted to answer that.” she said flatly. Duleau opened his mouth, as if about to protest, though before he could, he was gone; not with the dramatics of Prims’ departure, but with only the slightest of gusts of wind. Behind her, Juliet heard a disappointed sigh.
“You’d think,” said the woman called Agnes in 1922,  “that, just one of these days, someone's going to realize that a stolen Watch can only send them to a Time Vault, and not a real year.”
“Yeah,” Juliet turned to her partner, “and the day they realize there are set establishments to attract fraud Historians is the day we lose our jobs.”
“Maybe so.” she smirked. “C’mon; we should go look for a new criminal to convince they run this joint now that Prims is gone.”
Juliet followed her friend out into the false club in which everyone that ever came, with the exceptions of themselves, held a stolen Watch in their coats. As they walked, Juliet spoke.
“I have to say, he was really starting to grow on me.”