Wilson releases Kindler's former associate Meinike, hoping the man will lead him to Kindler. Wilson follows Meinike to a small town in Connecticut, but loses him before he meets with Kindler. Kindler has assumed a new identity as "Charles Rankin," and has become a teacher at a local prep school. He is about to marry Mary Longstreet, daughter of Supreme Court Justice Adam Longstreet, and is involved in repairing the town's 400-year-old Habrecht-style clock mechanism with religious automata that crowns the belfry of a church in the town square.