The Adventure of the Homicidal Automatons, Part the First

This is a Sherlock Holmes story I wrote a few years ago, set in an alternate London where the British Empire expanded into the reaches of outer space. Will be posted in chapters. Updates Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

 Part the First

            Although Sherlock Holmes’s skills have often been crucial to the welfare of the people and the continuing dominance of the British Empire, what was perhaps his most intricate and complex case occurred in 1887. I had been residing with Holmes at 221B Baker Street for just under five years after returning from the Martian War a humautomaton. I had received a paralytic dart, its venom distilled from the sands of Oneiros Plain and the juice of the Tho’rday shrub, to the shoulder, rendering my right arm useless. I was lucky to lose only my arm and not my life, and luckier still to have the good fortune of living with a man who had a good knowledge of mechanics. My new clockwork arm may have been a wonder of modern science, but it froze up with vexing regularity. It is a complex alignment of metal gears, cogs and various other parts contained within a steel cage, through which the workings are visible. This machinery works to move the steel fingers at the hand and the joints of the wrist and elbow.

            On the morning of March 22, I was sitting in the drawing room of the flat contemplating the morning’s news. I reached for my teacup on the side table and heard a nasty, metallic clunk-djrk. I looked at my arm, frozen and immobile, and sighed.

            “Holmes. Assistance.”

            Sherlock Holmes raised his goggled eyes from his worktable, where he had been bolting together one of the infernal devices he liked to make in his spare time. These mischievous bits of clockwork and springs served no purpose other than to run wild throughout the house, straining the nerves of MRS Hudson and myself and giving visitors the impression that we were afflicted with mice. Holmes claimed that someday they might serve as weapons of surveillance, and that their design grew better with each one he built, but thus far they served only as weapons of annoyance.

            “Again? That’s the third time this morning, Watson.” Holmes carefully lifted his goggles away from his eyes, setting them on his forehead.

            I struggled from my chair and went to the worktable. “Perhaps I should see a professional mechanic.”

            “Perhaps.” Holmes leaned over, putting his goggles back on. He had made them himself, attaching numerous magnifying lenses and such to the frames, so that with the right combination of lenses the goggles could function as anything from binoculars to a microscope. He flipped a lens over his right eye and poked at the gears of my arm with his screwdriver. This was perfectly painless, as I cannot feel the metal of my robotic limb. I rely on vision, sound and faith in the Venusian Lubricant to move my arm and know that it is moving as I tell it to.

            Holmes tapped a gear gently into place, set down his screwdriver and picked up an oil-can. He carefully administered a new coating of Venusian Lubricant to the gears and cogs. The Venusian Lubricant, as the biomechanic who gave me the limb explained it, transfers signals into the well-oiled leather harness buckled across my shoulder. From the leather the oil transmits the signals through the intricate gears down my arm and hand, turning them and allowing the limb and digits to move.

            With a replenishment of VL, a few taps to various bits of metal, and the replacement of a small gear in my wrist, the familiar whirring of machinery started up again and I drummed my fingers on the table in relief. Holmes nodded and went back to his “Id” (my personal nickname for the small scurrying robots. It stands for Infernal Device) while I returned to my newspaper.

            “Hmm! There has been another ship lost near Georgium Sidus,” I commented. Holmes grunted. “The HMS Prometheus. Too bad, although I expect the Empire has enough to handle at the moment with the Ionian colony rebelling.”

            “Mycroft doesn’t think so,” Holmes responded. “Ah! There we are. No, he says that that Reeve chap should take care of things pretty quickly.” He lifted the Id and set it on its feet. This one looked like a large eyeball in a compass, attached to a pair of thick wire legs and jointed wire arms, still gleaming from the recent coat of VL that had given it life. It blinked its eye at Holmes and made a small squeaking sound. I glared at it threateningly before Holmes nudged it off the table.

            “Must you set those awful things loose, Holmes?” I grumbled.

            “Why not?” asked my companion. He would have said more had not MRS Hudson221B, our outdated yet still proficient house robot, quite suddenly poked her head into the door and announced “Inspector Lestrade to see you, Mr. Holmes.”

            The Id made a break for freedom and MRS Hudson rolled back with an indignant clank. She was a fine Mechanized Robotic Servant, with a wonderful landlady personality and a no-nonsense attitude. She balanced on a pivoting trolley of four wheels and her hands were jointed much as my arm was. Upon her head rested a matronly bun fashioned from painted steel. “Mr. Holmes! Must you keep letting those infernal devices loose?” she said indignantly.

            “I do apologize, MRS Hudson. It got away from me,” Holmes lied. “Now will you please show Inspector Lestrade up here?”

            A moment later Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard, a smallish man with a somewhat ferret-like countenance, stood in the doorway.

            Holmes glanced at him. “Murder?”

            “Why, yes.”

            My friend stood, reaching for his hat. “Come along, Watson. Have you a cab waiting?” This last was directed at Lestrade, who replied in the affirmative. To my displeasure, it turned out to be an open carriage, one that exposes the occupants to the full view of the public. I prefer broughams, as my arm is less likely to be stared at. The mechanical limb cannot be covered by a sleeve, you see, and I receive far too many curious or pitying glances as it is.

            As we embarked to the scene of crime Lestrade described the murder to us.

            “This morning our man Durham was on the beat when he heard a scream from one of the houses,” he stated. “When he went to investigate, he found that Margery Spence, the daughter of Neil Spence—have you heard of him? The scientist?—had just found her father dead in his study. What’s more, one of the MAIDs, one of those new Norton models, was completely shut off, holding the bloody knife.”

            “If it’s completely shut off we won’t get much information from it,” murmured Holmes. Lestrade nodded.

            “The way I see it, either someone programmed the robot to kill Spence, or, more likely, it malfunctioned.”

            “Why is it more likely to have malfunctioned?” I asked. I had some sympathy for the poor Mechanized Assistant In Domicile. People tend to give robots, and indeed humautomatons, less credit than they (we) deserve.

            “Spence didn’t seem to have any enemies,” said Lestrade. “He was by all accounts an honourable man and a brilliant inventor. Who would want him dead?”

            Holmes stared out at the street, deep in thought. On the corner, a news-boy called, “Ionians revolting! Read all about it!” A green-haired Martian gent in a sharp suit stopped and bought one, opening it as he walked. I saw him walk straight into a man with mutton-chop whiskers and apologize, flashing his sharp teeth in a smile and doffing the hat on top of his waist-length hair before continuing his sojourn.

            “Also, house robots only answer to their registered masters,” continued Lestrade. “And I doubt even this MAID’s master could have got it to commit murder. It’s one of the new Norton safety models. Their programming expressly forbids harming humans, with no override whatsoever.” I nodded; this did seem logical.

            We pulled up in front of a grand house in the better part of London and went inside. Lestrade led the way to the study where the poor man had been killed.

            The body had been removed. There was a dark stain on the carpet behind the mahogany desk. Holmes snapped on his goggles and knelt, flipping and sliding the lenses. “Hmm. Kitchen knife. Wheel marks. Definitely the robot. But…ah!” He pointed. “Footmarks. The robot wasn’t the only one to walk into the study.”

            “Yes. Scotland Yard has been here as well,” I pointed out.

            “These footprints do not have the traditional police hob-nailed soles. Rather, they were made by expensive shoes imported from Italy, of the finest leather. Unfortunately, the aforementioned hob-nails have all but obliterated them.” Holmes straightened up and examined the desk. “Hmm. Has the Yard taken anything from the room?”

            “Only the body,” said Lestrade.

            “There was something here. Papers, no, a folder. Yes, the 78^th and 79^th files from that shelf, see how the numbers go from 77 to 80? Thick files, packed with information. This man is a scientist. Therefore we have our motive: Whoever got that robot to kill him then entered and seized his research.” Holmes carefully brushed a hand across the desk, then moved to the bookshelf. “And some of his books.” He examined the desk drawers. “Where is the key?”

            “It wasn’t found,” said Lestrade.

            “There is little enough time without wasting it in a search.” Holmes took a letter opener from the desk and picked the lock. He slid the drawers open, rifling through them in turn. Apparently they did not contain what he was searching for, as he grunted in exasperation and turned to the bookshelf, scanning it once again. He let out another irritated growl and turned back to Lestrade. “May I see the robot?”

            “Of course.” Lestrade led us back down the hallway. The robot was in the sitting room, this being closest and easiest for the police.

            The MAID was lying on a small table, with several policemen guarding it. I had not seen its model before. Had it been upright, it would have balanced on a single large wheel with a smaller, steadying wheel on either side. Its frame was covered by metal, painted to look like a traditional maid’s uniform, including a metal ruffled “skirt” that covered the ambulatory mechanism. The physiognomy was a mask, moulded from a sweet, female countenance, which for some reason seemed very familiar to me.

            Holmes paused a moment before going to examine it. “A Norton, did you say?” he inquired.

            “Yes, quite,” responded Lestrade. Holmes humphed and adjusted his goggles. I finally realized who the robot reminded me of and leaned over to Lestrade. “The Norton company isn’t owned by a Mr. Godfrey Norton, is it?” I murmured.

            “Why, yes,” he replied.

            Godfrey Norton must have modeled his robot’s face after his wife, Irene.

            Holmes drew back from the robot. “I can discern nothing,” he admitted, “but if the robot’s hand was forced, as I am sure it was, there must be some sign of it. Perhaps this type of work is better suited to one who spends his days entirely immersed in mechanics, as opposed to one who has so many other interests as well. Watson, help me pick it up.” I went to help him as he set the robot on the floor and steadied it.

            Lestrade scratched his chin. “I believe the Yard used to patronize a mechanic called Morstan until a few years ago. I remember him as a very competent man, always seemed to spot the tiniest details. Then MacCloud joined the force and we stopped going to Morstan.”

            “But at the moment, MacCloud is on Venus, attending to the HMS Indefatigable.”

            “How on earth did you know that, Holmes? It was top secret!”

            “Never mind. What about this chap Morstan?”

            “Ah, yes. As MacCloud is away at the moment, I was merely going to suggest you visit Morstan. Wait a moment.” He fumbled in his wallet and pulled out a business card, handing it to me. “Here’s the address. Take the robot there and tell me what he finds.”

            “Thank you, Inspector,” said Holmes. “Good day.” He led the way out of the mansion and flagged down a hansom on the street.


Part Two