Steampunk Omnibus: A Galvanic Century Collection (9 page)

***

I must have lost a great deal of blood, for my next remembrance is waking up some time later, bandaged and medicated. The drugs they'd given me were halfway effective – they dulled my senses, but didn't seem to moderate the painful throbbing I felt every place I'd been struck. A cloth bandage covered one of my eyes, and my left wrist was in a sling.

"James! You're not dead. Splendid." Bartleby concealed his relief well.

I cocked my head. "The tilt's worsened."

"We've noticed. Listen, they tossed Johnson's room and found a bloodied kerchief and a set of ship's keys. They're fingering him for the murder, but though Ives has copped to the mutiny he maintains that he had no idea about the theft."

"Do you believe him?"

"Yes. I doubt he'd have instigated a mutiny if he knew what was really going on. Oh, and the RAF caught the
Grande's
distress beacon, and they've sent a ship to help with the evacuation."

"Was Johnson the culprit, then?"

Bartleby was silent, looking down at the knuckles of his hands as they gripped the footboard of my sickbed. He was quiet for a moment, before looking up at me, his jaw set grim.

"No. It wasn't Johnson. It's all too just so, too tidy. He wouldn't have had the access an needed to get to the tools, and he wouldn't have stuck around long enough to risk a mutiny if he had the stabilizer. He wouldn't have dumped the laundry, and he wouldn't have left a bloody kerchief in his room. It most certainly wasn't Johnson." Bartleby took a sip of the glass of water at my bedside. "They haven't found the stabilizer, and while they're assuming Johnson hid it or had some confederate, the killer simply had to have been someone else."

"Who?"

"I don't know. An officer, likely. Dewit, or Miller or maybe even Nussbaum. Unless we catch the culprit with the stabilizer in-hand, there's no way to be sure."

"Blast." I was disappointed and sore. Despite my best intentions I'd taken to this detective lark as a matter of sport, and didn't like the idea of losing a case. Or losing London, for that matter.

"The Metropolitan police are waiting on the ground to search everyone as they are evacuated, in case Johnson had a confederate. We'll catch the culprit." Bartleby likewise sounded ill at ease to not be the one to solve the problem.

"Catch him? We're dead, Bartleby. That's it. They'll never evacuate the ship in time, nor clear out wherever we happen to crash in London."

"The ship's not listing that severely. The RAF plan to evacuate us, and then nudge the
Rio Grande
out to sea."

"It's not going to matter." I evaluated the ship's tilt. "Listen, the makeshift stabilizer that I crafted isn't going to hold much longer. When it goes, the ship is going to flip, capsize, and crash. We've got an hour at best, and even with the RAF's high altitude craft it'll take twice that to evacuate everyone."

"Bloody hell."

"Indeed." There were worse ways to die, I supposed, though I'd always assumed that it would be an accident in my lab rather than riding a massive bomb down to eradicate the capital of an empire. I wasn't much into geopolitics.

"I'll do my best to get us away with the first set of refugees." Bartleby said. "Do keep quiet about your failure to save us with your makeshift replacement parts."

"Blaming everyone's doom on me, as per the usual," I said.

My partner stifled a grin. "Does come up a bit often, doesn't it?"

"Hardly warranted this time." I smiled back. Bartleby's humor always had a tinge of the gallows to it, but his chatter told me that he held some sort of hope. For what, I couldn't imagine, but I've learned to trust the man. God save me. He had a plan, perhaps, to ensure our survival at the least, and to catch the culprit at the most. Frankly I'd be satisfied with either outcome.

***

"How's the wrist?"

"Hurts." I blamed the cramped conditions. My wrist was pinned up against the RAF aircraft's hull, and I could feel each and every vibration from its engines down to my marrow.

"Look, James, I'm sorry. This whole thing was a cock-up from the start. If only I'd been a little quicker to suss out the truth of the matter, you'd not have been injured."

"I don't blame you, Bartleby. All we can do is work with the facts as they're presented to us. And I admit, sometimes I overestimate my ability to dish out grievous harm to large groups of heavily armed men. Something I shall be mindful of in the future."

He chuckled. "See that you are. I think our consulting agency has a pleasant dynamic going, and I'd hate to be bothered with replacing you."

"I appreciate the concern." I cocked my head to listen. "He's cleared the bay. Shall we see who our mysterious pilot is?"

"We shall."

Bartleby lifted the hatch above us, and we quietly rose from the storage chamber under the RAF airship's gondola. First Mate Dewit was at the helm, unheedful of our presence until Bartleby spoke.

"Did you get clearance to depart, Mr. Dewit?"

Dewit spun, purloined RAF pistol in hand, only to drop it as Bartleby's cane made contact with his wrist. Bartleby drew back into an
en garde
stance. "Give it up, Dewit!"

Dewit snarled, pulling the knife from his boot. "You shouldn't have come! I didn't want to kill again!"

"You're killing thousands," I pointed out. "When the
Rio Grande
crashes into the city..."

"Who cares!" He made a wide swipe at Bartleby, who neatly deflected the blade and rapped his opponent on the knuckles. "It's just bad luck for them. Nobody cares when I'm unlucky, why should I care if a bunch of strangers I'll never meet die?"

"Monstrous." Bartleby lashed out with his cane.

Dewit ducked and countered with his knife, but Bartleby managed another parry.

"What's monstrous is when a man works and works and works," Dewit snarled, spittle flying from his curled lips, "and loses his pay because of bad investments with men like Ives and Herbert! Again and again! I have a wife, and a child! I need to support them."

"Bad investments aren't an excuse for murder." I manoeuvred around to try and get at his pistol. He kept me at bay with the knife. "Henderson was your friend."

"I didn't know!" he half-sobbed. "Just because I don't care doesn't mean I want them to die. I didn't want to kill Henderson, but he caught me. He was going to go to the Captain, and I'd lose everything again."

Bartleby lashed out with his cane, catching Dewit across the knuckles. The knife fell from his stinging fingers, and Bartleby pushed the advantage, pressing Dewit up against the control console.

"Why, Dewit? What was so important that you needed to kill Henderson and thousands of innocent strangers?"

"They didn't tell me! They bought my marker. Said they'd forgive my debts if I destroyed the Stabilizer. I didn't know it would crash the ship – I thought it was a navigational aid."

"Who?" Bartleby pressing the broad side of his cane into Dewit's throat, letting up just enough for him to answer.

"Don't... know. They came to me, never said who, but they had my marker. Decided I could double dip, right? Kept the device instead of breaking it like they said. Maybe sell it to Ives or one of Herbert's other competitors."

He gave a mighty shove, knocking Bartleby back, and dove for his gun. I was in motion, too, but – injured as I was – Dewit was faster.

"You didn't have to end up a monster," I growled, watching the gun in his hand. He had his eyes on me, watching as if I were an animal, waiting for me to pounce. "You could have given it up. Returned it to the engine room."

"I wanted to – I tried! But I couldn't get away during the mutiny, and security was on its guard afterward."

"So you'd just leave and let everyone die?" Bartleby asked.

"And what if I did?" he cried, pivoting, trying to keep both me and Bartleby covered with his pistol. "Life is cold, life is harsh, and if you don't watch out for you no one else will. The people who hired me were content with letting me die with the rest of you – why should I care if anyone else lives or dies?"

Seeing the First Mate's attention divided, Bartleby dashed forward, cracked the First Mate across his skull with the cane, knocking him unconscious. "He's got the device here. Find it and let's get back to the
Rio Grande
."

***

"We're lucky Dewit was a foolish and greedy man," Bartleby said between sips of champagne. "If he hadn't kept the Stabilizer not only would the
Rio
have fallen onto the city, but we'd never have caught him."

"Yes," I agreed. My own champagne sat untouched. I don't care for white wine. "But if he wasn't greedy he wouldn't have been in the situation that he found himself in. How does a man sink so far into debt?"

We stood on the aeroport's observation deck. While the
Rio Grande
had been saved with the stabilizer recovered, neither the crew nor the passengers had felt much like staying aboard until after a full safety inspection. The massive airship had been tugged out to the bay and left tethered, alone, unoccupied, floating like a massive dark cloud over the orange of the rising sun's first slivers.

"We're not all like you, James." Bartleby took my glass and drained it in a single gulp. "To you, money is just another system, one you don't particularly care for, but you're good with systems. If you applied yourself, you could devise a means to amass quite the fortune. But for a man like Dewit... so hungry for that largess, but so clueless as to how to come by it. Apparently he habitually wagered his savings on improbable investments; if he'd simply put his cheques in the bank like a reasonable soul, he'd have amassed a tidy sum instead."

"Hardly interesting."

"I find solvency to be quite enjoyable."

"So do I." Mr. Herbert had joined us with a smile. He handed us cigars. "Thank you, gentlemen. You really saved my name today."

"Not to mention your life." Bartleby tucked his cigar into his pocket. "I'm sorry that your ship's maiden voyage was so eventful."

"Ah, the right kind of eventful! It's a story the people of the United States will love. Adventure, excitement, danger, and a happy ending. You two stopped the villains and saved the day, and that's great press."

"Ah. Well. I suppose that you're rather grateful, then?"

Frank Herbert chuckled. "No need to beat around the bush, sir. Don't worry, you'll get paid for your services – and then some. You're useful men, and I can always use men who can be trusted to be useful. What do you say you come back with me? Take a retainer?"

"For what?" I'd lived and worked in the man's country previously, and I didn't find it very suiting. A very different sort of engineering culture and climate, one I wasn't keen on entering into again. Sloppy. Undisciplined.

"There are any number of things I might need your assistance with," Herbert said. "It's a competitive business, oligopoly, and in particular the railroads, and many parts of the western continent are still virtually lawless. I need men that can be relied upon."

It sounded dreadful. I lit my cigar. "You're very kind, sir, but I'm afraid I'll have to decline."

"You haven't heard my offer yet!"

"We do appreciate it," Bartleby said, "But my companion is right. We're a bit tethered to London at the moment. We do plan on expanding our operations, of course, but it takes time to establish a practice."

That hadn't been what I'd meant, but I didn't want to insult Mr. Herbert's homeland, so I let it slide.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Herbert said.

"Don't consider it a definite no," Bartleby said. "More of a... 'not at the moment.'"

Herbert smiled. "Fair enough, gentlemen. Fair enough."

On the Trail of the Scissorman

Bartleby dropped to one knee next to the recently orphaned boy's bed, hat in his hands, and regarded the child with due seriousness. "Tell me whatever you can recall of the Scissorman."

The child, seated on his bed, back against the wall, turned towards Bartleby and from the doorway I could see in his eyes a sadness beyond reason mixed with a certain dread acceptance. Whatever the boy had witnessed had carved its impression on his soul as deeply as the killer's blades had carved into his parents' flesh. The boy's sole remaining living relative, the uncle that had taken him in and commissioned our assistance, watched with concern.

"He came in through the window." The boy's voice was as flat and empty as his gaze. "He was quiet, but I was awake when he arrived so I saw him. He moved slow and fast at the same time. I don't know how to explain better. At first I thought he was Father Christmas come in July because he was red all over, but then I saw he was thin and curled up. And he smelled. Bad."

"Bad how?" Bartleby asked.

"I don't know. Just bad."

"Alright. Take your time, Henry. Remember what you can." This patience was why Bartleby was the one to interview the child. I would have pressed for data on each of his points – how tall the killer was, what shade of red he'd been, was his smell closer to rotten meat or burning oil – completeness is the basis of soundly constructed research. I'm not good with overly-emotional people, and children tend to be less reserved at the best of times.