The Adventure of the Homicidal Automatons, Part the Seventh

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 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Scroll to the end for chapter list.

              

             I reentered the shop, paper bag in hand, to hear Miss Morstan’s voice. She sounded exasperated and frazzled. “All right, let’s start again. I think we must have missed something.”

            She and Holmes were seated near the table, which was completely strewn with the various shiny pieces that made up the MAID and my poor arm. I joined them, setting the sandwiches down.

            “We know that we’re looking for something capable of receiving transmissions,” continued Miss Morstan. “We know that, whatever it is, it has something in common not only to these devices but to the majority of all mechanical objects.”

            “We do not know why our foe wants to build such an odious transmitter in the first place,” I contributed.

            Holmes shrugged. “With such a machine the man could bring London—indeed, all of Britain, and Mars and Venus besides—to their knees. But yes, Watson, you do have a point—there is most likely a specific purpose to this fiendishness.”

            Miss Morstan ran her hand over her hair. “Could the man have been exaggerating the reach of his device to you?”

            “Watson and I witnessed the effects first-hand. I suspect our man may be working on a device larger than the one he carries with him, meant to control robots at a greater range.”

            Miss Morstan frowned. “That would be very difficult, but if we know how he does it we may be able to stop it. What exactly was he stealing?”

            “I believe he took the late Professor Spence’s research on the transmission of signals through etheric sound and frequency. I cannot say what he took from Professor Sadd, although the fellow was an expert in both physics and Martian biology.”

            “Yes, there were quite a few Martian artifacts in that house, weren’t there? He even had a few Aphros Trees,” I commented.

            Miss Morstan smiled. “That must have been handy for him, to keep his robots running.”

            Such a thought would, of course, occur first and foremost to a mechanic. I was about to respond when Holmes suddenly interjected, “Wait. What did you say?”

            “It must have been handy for him to have the trees and the lubricant for his robots,” repeated Miss Morstan.

            “Physics,” murmured Holmes. “Mechanics. He had the trees—” My friend leapt to his feet. “Morstan! Do you have VL here?”

            “There’s a tub of it over there,” said Miss Morstan, frowning.

            Holmes dashed to the tub and scooped out a cup of VL. Setting it on the workbench, he snatched up something that looked rather like a miniature tesla coil, snapped on his goggles, aimed it at the VL, and, looking rather like the mad scientists one frequently finds inhabiting sanitariums, started the device in his hands so that it crackled with electricity. The VL suddenly flashed and sparks danced over it, sending electrical currents into its center.

            “That’s it!” Miss Morstan cried. “The receiver and conductor of the signals is the Venusian Lubricant itself!”

            Having finally grasped Holmes’s discovery, I was aghast. “But every machine in London uses VL!”

            “Exactly,” said Holmes grimly. He turned the electrical device off and raised his goggles. “All of England is prey to that mad, inspired fiend’s foul device!”

            Holmes paced nervously about the room while Miss Morstan repaired my arm and I sat and watched him. I was gratified to see Holmes open the bag I had brought back from the Cat and Fiddle. My efforts had not gone entirely to waste.

            Miss Morstan was reconstructing the inner workings of my arm. “If I had a machine like that and no moral standards, the first thing I would…” She stopped, her eyes wide. “He can commit any crime and no one will realize it is him.”

            “We have already established that,” snapped Holmes. “Our foe can do anything in any house where robots…” He looked at Miss Morstan. “Yesterday, you said something about the MAID we brought in. What was it?”

            Miss Morstan frowned in concentration. “I believe I merely stated that I had heard it was a good model. New, but the Queen herself has—”

            “Buckingham Palace!” Holmes cried out. “If I had that sort of machine and no ethical standards to stop me, the first thing I would accomplish would be the robbery of Buckingham Palace! Oh, imagine the fame! The notoriety it would bring!” He spun to face us. “And our villain is certainly the type who wishes for acclaim.”

            Miss Morstan fastened the outside structure and returned my arm to me. Anger, nervous tension and a prior knowledge of what to expect seemed to have sped her work. “Well, Mr. Holmes, surely all that is now required is to warn Buckingham Palace and keep a close watch on the crown jewels.”

            “If only it were that simple,” murmured Holmes. “Our foe has the perfect way of infiltration. He shall not be caught unless—” He straightened, a new light coming to his eyes, and turned to us. Miss Morstan and I looked at him expectantly.

            Sherlock Holmes smiled. “I have a plan.”

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Parts Four and Five
Part Six
Part Eight

The Hitchhiker's Tale

            It was just my luck that my car broke down on a deserted rural road in the middle of the night. Moreover, my cell phone was absolutely drained, preventing me from calling a cab. Fortunately it was a warm night, but that didn’t change the fact that I was squarely in between Danville, where my plane had landed, and Littlestown, where the mythology conference was. I was to present a paper on the symbolism behind Loki’s imprisonment the next morning, and I could not be late.

            That was what prompted me to stick my thumb out when the headlights snaked down the road ten minutes later. Inadvisable, I know, but I was desperate. It was almost thirty miles to Littlestown.

            The headlights turned out not to belong to a car, but a pickup truck. It pulled over and the driver, a ginger-haired boy in maybe his late teens or early twenties, leaned out of the window. “Hey, you want a ride?” he called amiably.

            “Thanks.” I got into the front seat, settling my briefcase under my knees. The car was, I had noticed, badly dented and scraped in several places.

            “Where are you headed?” asked the boy, pulling back onto the road and glancing at me curiously. I must have been quite an atypical hitchhiker: a thin man with academic glasses and a briefcase, wandering the empty roads at midnight.

            “Littlestown,” I told him. “I’m on my way to an academic conference on mythology. I specialize in the Prose Edda, you know.”

            “Oh yeah? I haven’t heard of that,” said the boy, a smile tugging on the corner of his mouth. “I don’t get out much, though.”

            “What about you?” I asked. “What brings you to this stretch of road so late at night?”

            “Me?” He shrugged. “I just like driving.”

            A thought struck me and I chuckled. “This is like something out of an urban legend. When I get to Littlestown and describe you, someone will tell me that you died ten years ago and still keep driving around picking up hitchhikers.”

            “Twenty-three, actually,” said the boy, turning the wheel slightly as the road curved.

            I frowned. “Twenty-three what?”

            “It was twenty-three years ago,” he explained, “not ten.” He glanced at me, deadpan.

            I laughed and after a moment his mouth quirked upwards and he laughed with me. “Nah, I kid,” he said, checking the rearview mirror. “So tell me—what do you do for fun?”

            The drive took less than half an hour, and the boy, who introduced himself as Asa Baker, let me out beside the hotel. I walked into the lobby and called in my reservation, planning to rescue my car the next day (or rather, that afternoon—it was one-forty-five a.m. when I got to the hotel).

            After I presented my paper, I got a ride from one of my colleagues, a woman who taught creative writing at Littlestown University and had presented a paper on story tropes. When I told her where my car was, she stared at me in confusion and said, “How on earth did you get all the way here in time for the conference?”

            I told her that a young man called Asa Baker had picked me up and brought me to the hotel, and she looked at me with half-lowered eyelids.

            “My students put you up to this, didn’t they,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

            “What do you mean?”

            “Asa Baker. He’s one of the more popular urban legends around here. He was a nineteen-year-old farm worker who died in a freak road accident twenty-something years ago. People say he drives around in his pickup truck and offers hitchhikers rides. My students are always joking about meeting him on a dark road in the middle of the night.”

            I stared at her. “You’re kidding.”

            “Nope.” She raised an eyebrow. “So how’d you really get here?”

            “But…” I shook my head. “My God, he wasn’t joking. He actually wasn’t joking.”

            “Who wasn’t joking?”

            “Asa Baker. It really was twenty-three years!”

            

The Adventure of the Homicidal Automatons, Part the Sixth

Sorry about the slightly late update. I had minor technical difficulties.

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 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Scroll to the end for chapter list.

               Morstan’s Master Mechanics was slightly neater than it had been the previous day, especially since the mechanical coach was now absent. I believe that Miss Morstan wanted to make as good an impression on Holmes as possible. She listened attentively as he described the events of the previous night, then said, “Well, then, perhaps the most sensible way to go about this would be to examine both the robot and Doctor Watson’s arm and isolate any similar parts. That way we shall automatically narrow down the objects that could be the receiver until we find it.”

            Holmes helped me remove my arm. On any other day I might have objected to this, but with the experience of the previous night still fresh in my mind I was quite glad not to wear the limb for a while.

            The two mechanics set the robot and the arm on a large table Miss Morstan had dragged in and began dissecting them. I watched intently, wishing to contribute something to the investigation, but soon began to grow bored. I had not slept well the previous night, and I fell into a sort of trance.

            Holmes nudged me out of it. “Watson, old friend, move a bit to the right, would you? I need the space.” I migrated to the other side of the table to stand beside Miss Morstan. “Thank you. Ah! The main transmitter. Does Watson’s arm have one?”

            Miss Morstan reached across and took the object he held from him. She brought it close to her eyes, frowned, and glanced at me. “Doctor, could you please move? You’re blocking the light.” Embarrassed, I moved to her right. “Thank you. No, Holmes, this is a Radial886 model. The doctor’s is a Nimbus24.”

            Holmes nodded. “Of course.”

            “Does it matter?” I asked.

            Both Holmes and Miss Morstan fixed me with a gaze that made me feel very foolish. “It certainly does,” said Miss Morstan. “The former is made of copper and sends out the signals of its own accord, helped by readings of what situation the robot is currently in, and the latter is of Venusian phostlite and receives very precise signals from your shoulder. The signals are entirely different.”

            I frowned. “But if the signals are so different, than how can one device control two machines?”

            “Obviously not through the main transmitter,” said Miss Morstan, turning back to her work. I believe she may have rolled her eyes at my stupidity. (Holmes certainly did.) Miffed, I poked at a round metal piece like a top balanced on its point, making it wobble.

            “Don’t touch that!” cried Miss Morstan. “You’ll upset its balance!” Sure enough, no sooner had she uttered the words than the part fell onto its side and rolled off the table. I managed to catch it with my solitary hand and put it back. Miss Morstan sighed, picked it up, and gave it a few gentle taps with a screwdriver before carefully balancing it once again upon its point. She then began a discussion with Holmes that, not being versed in mechanical science, I was unable to follow. I thought to help by arranging a number of gears lying near me in order of descending size, and proceeded to do so until Miss Morstan gave a cry of dismay and confiscated them from me.

            Undaunted, I went to examine some of the projects on the back shelves. There were a number of children’s toys, as well as automatic dusters, auto-butlers and MAIDs, and even a prototype “vacuum-cleaner”—the sort of things one would entrust to a female mechanic. There were also several little robots much like Holmes’s Ids, but looking back at Miss Morstan I realized that rather than being awful annoyances, a few of them were actually assisting her. I poked at an auto-butler and was considerably dismayed when it fell apart with a series of loud clanks. I had been unable to steady it due to my lack of a right arm. Miss Morstan groaned and directed me back to the worktable.

            Returning to her side, I picked a piece of my arm up. It was a beautiful thing of iridescent glass that must have been hidden near the center of the limb, for I had not seen it before. Unfortunately, it was slick with VL, and it slid from the clumsy fingers of my left hand and plummeted towards the floor.

            Miss Morstan, showing great agility, caught it a few inches from the ground.

            Holmes groaned. “Watson,” he growled through his teeth, “if you do not cease in your endeavors to ‘help’ this job may take us another two years.”

            “There are a few journals and such in that box over to the right,” said Miss Morstan pointedly.

            I sat down on a stool near the corner and rummaged through the box. I was pleasantly surprised to find a medical journal, although I suppose it made sense—Miss Morstan would, of course, need to be up-to-date in bionic science. I immersed myself in it for perhaps an hour and a half before Holmes cried out, “Watson!”

            I leapt up, certain that I was being summoned to witness a ground-breaking event, or, better yet, to participate in one. “Yes?”

            “Would you mind running down to the pub and bringing back some sandwiches? We may be here for quite some time.”

            As I trudged down to the Cat and Fiddle, with Holmes’s coat covering my right shoulder, I morosely mused that the entire order of things had been upset: Miss Morstan was occupying the position normally taken by Holmes, who was impersonating me, while I was entirely expendable. 

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Parts Four and Five
Part Seven

The Adventure of the Homicidal Automatons, Parts the Fourth and Fifth

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 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Scroll to the end for chapter list. (Two parts in this installment because Part Four is fairly short.)

Once we had made our way back to the house, Holmes took charge of the police officers. The victim was, of course, a scientist: Professor Richard Sadd of Oxford University. He had recently returned from an expedition to Mars and had an impressive collection of Aphros. The refined sap of these trees is the Venusian Lubricant relied on by robots and humautomatons. It was at the time uncommon but not unheard of to own a few of the trees on Earth, rather like owning an exotic bird or a pet hedgehog.

            Holmes examined the study, where once again the crime had taken place, and saw that more research had been stolen. Sadd had apparently been an expert in physics and Martian biology.

            Holmes carefully leaned over the desk, the lenses of his goggles glinting. He frowned and tapped it before glancing at the ceiling. Following his gaze, I saw a large golden stain on the white wall and ceiling. “Ah,” said Holmes, turning to the young Martian officer, who standing in the corner. “Could you be so kind as to get that down for me, please?”

            “Yes, sir,” said the lad, lisping slightly as all Martians do, because of their sharp, pointed teeth. He peeled off his boots and, carefully placing his hands and feet upon the wall, scaled it as easily as a gecko might. I had read in a medical journal of the tiny filaments on the hands and feet of Martians, which allow them to stick to sheer surfaces and even hang upside down. It had given them an advantage in the Martian War and indeed, it had cost me my arm, but now that the war was over and the Martians at peace with England it made for a handy trait in police officers.

            The officer cut the stained plaster off the wall and sprang down to land lightly beside Holmes. “What is your name?” my friend inquired

            “Ygruky, sir.”

            “Thank you, Ygruky.” Holmes examined the piece of wall. “Interesting.” He adjusted his goggles. Ygruky looked delighted to have been of use. I believe he was a bit in awe of Holmes, going by his physiognomy. Martians are very expressive and cannot hide their emotions.

            Leaning against a wall, I stifled a yawn. The adrenaline from our chase had worn off and the incredible events of the day were taking their toll on me.

            Holmes glanced at me and, taking one more look through the study, decided that he had seen enough. We retired to Baker Street for the night, where I slept uneasily, plagued by nightmares of an unseen force controlling me.

***

            The next morning, as Holmes and I took breakfast, we heard the doorbell downstairs. Holmes sighed. “That will no doubt be Miss Morstan.”

            I put down my teacup. “How can you possibly know that?”

            “I expected that she would come to inquire as to whether her analysis was in fact correct. It is what I would do, given her situation.” Holmes frowned. “What is taking her so long?”

            I volunteered to go see.

            I went down to the door and found Miss Morstan talking with MRS Hudson. She was in a state of excitement, and upon seeing me she cried, “Hello, Doctor! What a wonderful robot you have here! She’s beautiful!”

            “Thank you.”

            “Do you know how rare these old Hudsons are? I haven’t seen one for years, and this is a particularly lovely model! She’s in wonderful condition, too!”

            “I wasn’t aware that they are rare,” I said truthfully, although I could not recall seeing another like MRS Hudson at any other house.

            “Oh, yes. The Hudson corporation went out of business about a year after yours was built. They used to make robots specifically for houses, you know, so yours is really MRS Hudson221B. Was there ever an MRS Hudson221A?” This last inquiry was directed to the robot.

            “She was sold by 221’s previous owners, before Mr. Holmes rented here,” responded our landlady.

            “Pity. Still, you’re an absolute wonder!” Miss Morstan suddenly looked alarmed as a thought crossed her mind. “Er…Mr. Holmes hasn’t made any, ah, temporary fixes, has he?”

            I daresay MRS Hudson would have smiled had her face been mobile. “He has done nothing more drastic that replacing a few bolts and changing my oil.”
            “Ah. Good. Still, tell Doctor Watson to bring you down to my shop some time.”

            I cleared my throat. “You may tell me that yourself, Miss Morstan. I believe you wish to ask Holmes the results of his inquiries?”

            She blinked. “Why, yes. Did you deduce that yourself, or did he?”

            “It was Holmes,” I admitted, leading her up the stairs. “And you were perfectly correct, as was confirmed by the six other mechanics he visited.”

            Miss Morstan let out a relieved sigh. “Thank God. I was beginning to wonder if I was losing my touch. I am sure you understand, Doctor—in your case it would be like being unable to find anything wrong with a patient who was sick and dying.”

            I winced. “A most unsettling notion, indeed. Will you step inside?”

            Holmes looked up from the paper he was reading as we entered the room. He rose from his chair to shake Miss Morstan’s hand.

            “I understand that I was correct?” she said with a small smile. “Or at least the six other mechanics made the same mistake I did?”

            Holmes gave me an irritated look. I suppose he had wished to downplay her victory. “Yes. Thank you for visiting us this morning, Miss Morstan. I think, however—”

            Miss Morstan pounced upon the paper Holmes had left lying on his footrest. “What’s this?” She scanned the front page. “Oh, dear! Another attack of the same kind! I expect you will be going over the robot once again.”

            Holmes nodded. “I have a better idea of what to look for this time.”

            “You do? Then let’s go.” Miss Morstan tossed the paper aside and headed for the door.

            She turned back to find both of us frowning at her, perplexed. She sighed. “If you’re going to examine a robot, what better place to do it than the shop of a professional mechanic?”

            Holmes’s voice was icy. “I am sure that this room will be perfectly adequate.”

            “Really.” Miss Morstan tilted her head. “Tell me, Mr. Holmes, will you be searching for something that could receive a transmitted signal?”

            Holmes was momentarily surprised before nodding wryly. “A trade journal, I suppose.”

            “Exactly.”

            “As I said, this space is adequate.”

            “Do you have a Moxillian hydraulic screwdriver?”

            “As a matter of fact, I do.”

            “What about a Galaxiantic socket wrench?”

            “I possess that as well.”

            “Really. Well, then, do you have a Hansom robotic clamp?”

            Holmes paused. “I won’t need one.”

            “You certainly will. How do you propose to hold the robot steady?”

            “I can find some way.”

            “Ah! More jury-rigging. Tut, tut, Mr. Holmes, I expected better. There’s nothing that’s going to work in here. And besides,” Miss Morstan continued as she gestured around her, “if you examine that here, either you’ll lose something or it will be stolen by those awful clockwork boggarts you’ve made to keep yourself amused. The light isn’t bright enough for this kind of work, and you’ll never find what you’re looking for. The whole process will be one disaster after another.”
            Holmes hesitated, then icily conceded. “Very well, Miss Morstan. We shall meet you at your shop in half an hour.”  

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

The Adventure of the Homicidal Automatons, Part the Third

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 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Scroll to the end for chapter list.

           I did not accompany Holmes to the other mechanics, choosing instead to go back to Baker Street and catch up on the day’s news and the stack of medical journals that had been sitting on the floor for two weeks. Holmes returned much later than I expected him, staggering into the flat and dumping the MAID in a corner. He collapsed into his armchair and requested that I bring him his pipe and tobacco.

            After the pipe was smoking comfortably, I ventured to inquire as to whether he had got a second opinion.

            “Yes,” grumbled Holmes.

            “And?”

            “He was unable to find any damage.”

            “Ah.”

            “Neither could the one after him.”

            “You went to another?”

            “Nor could his successor.”

            “You went to a third mechanic?”

            “And a fourth. And a fifth. And a sixth.” Holmes admitted this belligerently.

            “Six mechanics? No wonder you’re fagged out. And none of them found a thing?”           

             “Nothing. Six of the best mechanics in London, all men, and not one could find a cause.” Holmes stared into the fire.

            “What! Then Miss Morstan…”

            “Was perfectly correct in her analysis.” Holmes shook his head. “I’m missing something, Watson.”

            At that moment, we heard a commotion on the stairs. A young Martian police officer burst into the room, severely winded. His rust-coloured forehead glistened with sweat and he brushed a few loose strands of his elbow-length purple hair, tied back in a “ponytail”, from his eyes. “Mr. Holmes, sir? Lestrade needs you urgently!”

            Holmes sat up. “What is it?”

            “Another robot murder, sir! Not ten minutes ago!”

            Holmes leapt to his feet. “Quick, Watson!”

           

            We dashed into the house within a quarter hour, having run all the way there. The Martian lad fairly collapsed on our arrival, but Holmes, barely pausing to catch his breath, strode into the house. “Where?” he demanded of Lestrade.

            Before Lestrade could answer, however, Holmes cocked his head and motioned for silence. In the stillness that followed I heard a door closing in another part of the house. Holmes bolted towards the sound, leaving the police officers standing puzzled in the hallway. I followed him to the back of the house, where we dashed out the door and scrambled over the fence. Holmes pointed at a figure, sprinting away down the street.

            “There! He escaped when all attention was turned to our arrival!”

            We started running after him. I noticed Holmes draw his revolver, and I resolved to flip out the knife in my hand when I could do so without fear of cutting myself.

            We ran through the murky streets of London for what seemed an hour, growing ever closer to our prey. He led us all the way down to the banks of the foul-smelling Thames, where we all three slowed, for there was much fog that night and none of us wanted to fall in. The man kept us in a merry dance around a blackened warehouse, darting just out of sight behind the boxes and barrels.

            I believe we nearly had him then, in the dark of night. He seemed to be lurking behind a large wooden crate. Holmes crept towards it, his gun drawn, his footsteps as light as a Martian’s. (Martians, as I can tell you from experience, are extremely quiet on their feet.)

            I noticed then that the customary whirring of my arm had changed subtly in pitch. Glancing at it, I was surprised to see that the knife had folded out. I thought I must have done it unconsciously until my arm began to move.

            I did not direct it, and indeed tried to hold it still, but to my horror the mechanical limb shifted, of its own accord, so that the blade of the knife was against my own throat!

            “Holmes!” I whispered. “Help me!”

            Holmes whirled around, irritated, but his expression changed to puzzlement when he saw my predicament. “Watson, what on earth are you—”

            “I’m not doing anything! It’s doing this on its own!”

            Holmes’s eyes widened and a low chuckle resonated from behind the crate.

            “Not entirely on its own, I think, Doctor Watson.”

            Holmes turned back, his gun pointed directly at the source of the voice. At the same time the blade pressed harder into my throat.

            “Do drop the gun, Mr. Holmes. We wouldn’t want someone to get hurt, would we?”

            “I don’t know,” responded Holmes calmly. “I should very much like to see you hurt.”

            I felt a trickle of blood slide down my neck.

            “Holmes!”

            He set the gun on the floor.

            “Kick it away,” commanded the voice. Holmes scowled and sent the weapon spinning into the darkness. The pressure of the knife eased.

            “Thank you. Now, we can talk.”

            “Who are you?” Holmes’s voice was taut with anger.

            “You needn’t know my name if you cannot deduce it.”

            “What do you want?”

            Our unseen foe laughed again. “I think the question for you is rather, ‘How am I going to get it?’ You’ve already seen the effects of my little contrivance here.”

            Holmes glanced at me and nodded slowly. “It controls mechanical devices remotely.”

            “Precisely.”

            Holmes nodded again. “And you are building a bigger one. The monographs on Spence’s walls. The books. Theories of electrical impulses and remote controls.”

            “Very good! A little too good, in fact,” said the voice. “I shall be going now. I advise that neither of you move or attempt to follow me. That would have most unfortunate consequences. For you, that is.”

            The figure emerged from his shelter and started off towards the entrance of the warehouse. He paused a moment and said, “It is only through my mercy, of course, that you do not lie dead at this moment. I could easily kill you both. But what satisfaction would that give me? No, Holmes, I think it will be much more gratifying to leave you alive for now, so that you can witness my greatest triumph, my rise to infinite power, and, after I have control over every robot, airship, locomotive and bionic limb in England, you shall be able to despair and know that I beat you before I strike the fatal blow.”

            “A nice touch. One would almost believe that you are actually carrying a weapon.”

            Our foe stiffened, as if in irritation. In the darkness he was indistinct, but I caught a gleam of metal from the device he held. “Until we meet again, Mr. Holmes…” he said softly, turning to leave.

            We waited in tense silence as he walked away. After what felt like an eternity, my arm began to obey my commands once more. It jerked away from my neck the moment he had left the warehouse. The knife folded itself away. I sat down on a nearby crate, pressing my tie to my throat to stop the bleeding.

            Holmes ran to the end of the warehouse and looked after our foe. “He took a boat. There’s no catching him now,” he reported, coming back to help me. “Watson, are you all right?”

            I nodded wordlessly, although I felt far from well. My arm—my own limb—had been taken from my control and been forced by another as a way to hurt, or even kill me. A part of my body had been under another’s control. The raw sense of betrayal would take some time to fade, and I doubted I would ever fully trust my arm again.

            “Why did he not carry a weapon?” I asked after a few minutes, when I had regained some of my composure.

            “He was over-confidant in the abilities of his machine,” responded Holmes, “and expected that he would be able to get away more easily than he did. Why he did not simply kill us with your arm, I do not know, but I think that his melodramatic speech was at least partly true. Megalomaniacs of his sort often lust for fame.”

            “Why couldn’t he get away? He had half an hour before we arrived.”

            “He had disguised himself as a human servant. I suppose that house must have a few.” (Human servants were much more rare these days, as much of the lower classes had been shipped off to start colonies on other planets, but there were still a few household functions that required a human to carry them out.) “He was making his escape with what he took—I presume you saw the shoulder-bag he carried?—when his victim made some sound and he was intercepted. There was enough of a commotion that his presence was not spotted, but he could not get away until we arrived and the attention was focused elsewhere.” Holmes took my arm—my natural one—and guided me to the door. “Come. We should examine the crime scene while we have the chance.”

            

Part One
Part Two
Parts Four and Five

The Adventure of the Homicidal Automatons, Part the Second

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. 

Part One
Part Three

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