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 One here.
Morstan’s
Master Mechanics was a rather small establishment as mechanics go, flanked by a
bookshop and a dark alley. It was perhaps the size of a small stable, whereas
most shops of its kind are more like large warehouses. There did not seem to be
a doorway as such, for the entire front of the building was open to allow large
mechanisms to be pulled inside. The interior seemed shadowed, but I could see a
light from within.
Holmes
stepped forward. He had covered the MAID in a cloth and I was pushing it as it
balanced on its wheels. “Come, Watson. Let us see if our Mr. Morstan holds up
to the exalted reputation Lestrade has granted him.”
We
approached the shop and stepped inside, waiting a moment as our eyes adjusted
to the relative dark. Holmes knocked on the wall and called out, “Mr. Morstan?”
There
was a movement from the back of the shop and a voice called out, “Come in!”
Holmes
frowned but entered into the light of the inner shop. I followed, still
propelling the robot.
The
room was larger than it had first appeared, lined with shelves on which rested
various mechanical bits and pieces. Off to one side was a workbench on which I
noticed several small contraptions not unlike Holmes’s Ids, lying amidst
scattered cogs, sprockets, flexible tubing and the like. In the center of the
shop was a great mechanical apparatus that I recognized as a mechanical coach.
These had just recently been invented by a mad American chap but were wildly
unpopular due to their tendency to go careening down the middle of the street,
smash into buildings, and kill their passengers, not to mention innocent
bystanders. They were basically topless wagons with engines, steered by means
of a tiller. Only the very rich and the very foolish owned them.
A
pair of boots protruded from the underside, and I heard a clank followed by a
curse. The voice uttering it was higher than I would have expected; it seemed almost
feminine—as did the boots. Then the mechanic wriggled out sideways and my jaw
dropped, for this person was indeed female.
She
was a small, blond young lady, who would have seemed dainty had it not been for
the smudges of grease across her face and person and the faint scratch on her
cheek. Her wide blue eyes revealed considerable intellect and the set of her
mouth promised determination. Her hands, which she quickly wiped upon a
handkerchief that had been resting on the workbench, were small but calloused,
with dirty fingernails; obviously this lady was used to hard work. Her clothes
were beige, in good taste but also terribly smudged from the underside of the
coach. She ran a hand over her blond hair, pulled back into an escaping bun,
and smiled at us.
“I’m
dreadfully sorry. These confounded carriages are so badly designed as to
promise death to the passengers, I don’t know what that idiot Ford was
thinking, but the owners pay well and I believe I am able to postpone a few
catastrophes a month. How may I help you?”
Holmes
seemed quite taken aback by this lady assistant, but he rapidly collected
himself. “I am looking for Mr. Morstan,” he stated, then checked the business
card and added “Mr. Arthur Morstan. Is
he in?”
The
woman’s smile stiffened. “I’m afraid not.”
“I
see.” Holmes looked down his nose at her. “When will he return? It is quite
urgent.”
“Arthur
Morstan was my father,” said the woman, meeting Holmes’s condescending gaze
directly. “He left the shop to me when he died three years ago. I am quite
competent to assist you with your—” she glanced at me and my charge—“MAID.”
Holmes
jerked, his expression one of total and utter shock. He was utterly
dumbfounded. “You are a mechanic?”
“I
am.” Miss Morstan’s gaze flickered back to me for a moment and she frowned. “It
is a good thing you are here, as I fear your friend desperately needs
mechanical assistance.”
Holmes
drew himself up. “I see. Well, Miss Morstan, I am afraid that the business I
have been entrusted with is too complex to hand off to an amateur, and
certainly of far too much importance for a female. You understand, I’m sure.”
Miss
Morstan’s expression turned to anger. “I am a fully qualified mechanic!”
“Good
day, Miss Morstan.” Holmes turned to go, taking the robot from me and propelling
it along. I turned to follow him and, as an afterthought, raised my right hand
to tip my hat.
I
heard a small tchack in my arm and knew
in a trice that something had slipped horribly out of place. In the next instant,
the scalpel and dagger Holmes had concealed in my arm sprang out at odd angles,
the scalpel missing my eye by two inches. Several gears clattered to the floor,
and the throwing knife Holmes had built in abruptly launched, whisking my
companion’s hat off his head and impaling it against the wall. There was a sproing-oing-oing
as most of the springs jettisoned in
several different directions at once. Everything had fallen out of place and
with two clanks the index and
ring fingers fell off my hand and bounced on the floor.
There
was a very awkward silence, broken by the patter of a final gear rolling in
circles before rattling to a stop. Miss Morstan sighed and put a hand to her
face.
Holmes
turned and glanced fearfully at my arm and then back at his hat. If the knife
had gone a mere six inches lower—I shuddered to think of it.
“I
was afraid that might happen,” said Miss Morstan.
Holmes
glared at her. “Oh?”
“Of
course.” She walked over to me and guided me to the workbench, where she
instructed me to sit and rest the metal limb on the table. “I could see even
from a distance that your arm was jury-rigged. You’re very lucky it went wrong
in here and not out on the street. Someone could have been killed! Pick up the
parts.” This last was to Holmes, who, surprisingly, obeyed. “If you would
remove your arm, Mr.…?”
“Watson.
Doctor John Watson.” I started to direct my arm to shake her hand out of habit
before remembering its current state. “And that is my companion, Sherlock
Holmes.”
Miss
Morstan’s eyebrows went up a fraction upon hearing our names, but she said
only, “Mary Morstan, at your service. Do you have all the parts, Mr. Holmes?”
Holmes set the bits and pieces he had collected on the table.
After
Holmes had helped me undo the buckles that held the leather harness that secured
my mechanical arm, Miss Morstan began to put it back together, piece by piece.
A few minutes later she held up a cog and frowned. “This isn’t compatible with
the rest of the machine. How did it get in there?”
“Mr.
Holmes occasionally repairs my arm when it malfunctions.”
“It
malfunctions?”
“Nothing
serious until now. It merely locks into place and become immovable until the
problem is corrected.”
“I
see. Does this happen often?”
“It
has been happening more often recently.”
“Hmm.”
Miss Morstan surveyed the drawers of her workbench, selected a miniscule copper
cog, and snicked it into place. She then replaced several gears, wires, and
cogs and eventually glared at Holmes. “When you repair Mr. Watson’s arm, are
you attempting to deal with the problem permanently?”
“Not
exactly.” Holmes had been watching Miss Morstan, his mouth tight with
disapproval of a woman doing advanced mechanics. “I simply try to make it
operational.”
Miss
Morstan turned her attention back to me. “How long has it been since you saw a
biomechanical diagnostician?”
I
thought back. “I’m not quite sure. Perhaps two years.”
“Two
years?! My God, you’re lucky it didn’t go
wrong long before this!” Miss
Morstan slid a thick spring into place and braced the throwing knife against
it. “You should have gone to one every four months for a checkup at the very
least. I believe you’ve been having serious
problems with it for at least eighteen months, not helped by Mr. Holmes’s additions” (she bolted the scalpel in) “or ‘temporary
fixes.’ In fact, Mr. Holmes may have compounded
your troubles by ignoring the long-term
cause and implementing slipshod, short-term solutions.”
Holmes
snorted. “Bosh.”
“Temporary
fixes are dangerous, Mr. Holmes. One forgets the original problem and assumes
that everything will turn out fine.” Miss Morstan had completed assembling the
inside of the arm in a remarkably short time. She tightened the bolts on the
metal frame that held it together and sat back. “Try it now, Doctor.”
After
putting the harness back on, I rotated my wrist and flexed my fingers. The
entire contraption was much, much quieter than it had been, its small clicks
and tocks and whirrs barely audible. I extended the scalpel and the knife and
found that they worked perfectly.
“Try
the throwing knife,” said Miss Morstan. “See if you can hit that stain on the
wall over there.”
I
launched the knife directly into the center of my makeshift target.
“How
can I ever thank you, Miss Morstan?” I said in admiration. “I don’t believe it
worked this well when I first acquired it!”
“I
wonder if your companion shares your enthusiasm,” she replied with a wry smile.
“I believe you had a MAID to be fixed?”
Holmes
sullenly lifted it onto the workbench.
“Ooh,
a Norton safety model,” said Miss Morstan appreciatively. “Good robots, or so
I’ve heard. Mechanics Weekly said the
queen has just ordered two hundred for Buckingham Palace.”
“Quite,”
said Holmes stiffly, before explaining the problem.
“I
see. So we are looking for evidence that the robot was damaged, malfunctioning
or has been tampered with?” Miss Morstan picked up a set of goggles not unlike
Holmes’s but less elaborate. “Hand me that lantern, would you? Thank you. Hmm.”
Holmes
and I watched as Miss Morstan carefully went over the robot, starting with the
outside. I confess I became rather bored after about ten minutes and began to
wander about the shop while Holmes and Miss Morstan continued their scrutiny. I
was not paying close attention and was therefore surprised when Holmes’s voice
rang out: “Preposterous.”
“I’m
afraid it’s true, Mr. Holmes.” Miss Morstan sounded surprised at her own
conclusion. “There is nothing wrong with this robot.”
“But
there must be!” I interjected.
“It
is in pristine condition—not more than a week old, in fact—and there are no
signs of physical harm at all,” stated Miss Morstan. “Tampering with it would
have left some tangible sign of damage, as would any accident.”
“Perhaps
it went mad on its own?” I suggested.
“If
wires had crossed that is possible,” she conceded, “but every wire is exactly
where it should be. There is no possible reason for this robot to have killed
its master.”
Holmes
stood up abruptly. “See, Watson,” he cried, “this is what comes from trusting a
woman with delicate mechanics, or any matter requiring logic and dispassion! There
is no possible reason to kill its master, and
yet it did kill its master.
Therefore our ‘mechanic’” (he pronounced the word with scorn) “has obviously
missed something—as I knew she would.” He bolted the robot’s head shut and
swung it to its wheels. “Come, Watson, we shall seek the services of a proper
mechanic.”
Miss
Morstan stood. Her face was tight with anger. “Seek a second opinion by all
means. But I wager that a male mechanic won’t find anything I didn’t.”
Holmes
stormed out of the shop. I turned to Miss Morstan, not quite sure how to
properly apologize for Holmes’s behavior. “I…er…how much for my arm?”
She
waved me away. “Consider it a gift. Now go, please.”
I
glanced over my shoulder as I left and saw her sit down at her workbench and
run a tired hand over her eyes.
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