Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl (19 page)

“No,” said Gideon. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“Then you must stay the night here,” decided Trigger. “We have rooms, and you shall be quite comfortable.”

“Sounds lovely!” Bent beamed.

Trigger looked at him. “You wish to stay too, Mr. Bent? You may, of course. But I thought you considered Mr. Smith somewhat mad.”

“He
is
mad,” said Bent. “Mad as a hatter.” He pointed at Trigger. “You’re as much of a lunatic as he is, and you’re a shirt-lifter to boot. She’s a pretty little thing, but barely says a word and doesn’t even know her own name. You’re each as mad as the rest. But never let it be said that Aloysius Bent can’t smell a good story when he steps in it.” Bent put an arm around Gideon, who flinched at the smell of stale sweat wafting from his armpits. “I’m sticking to you like Lyle’s Golden Syrup, my lad. Whitby, Egypt, or the fucking moon, you’re going nowhere without me.”

12
Dr. Reed’s Casebook

I had (said Captain Lucian Trigger to his dinner guests) a long and largely illustrious career with the 1st Battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, traveling all over the world and rising to the rank of Captain. At the rear of this room, on the mannequin between those two cabinets, you will see my uniform. The brass buttons on the blue double- breasted tunic are polished every week, the red sash and trouser stripes are as bright and vital as they were in the merciless Indian sun, and the rapier is as keen as it was when I single-handedly faced a gang of bloodthirsty Thuggees in ’76.

Alas, that career came to a rather abrupt end a little over a decade ago. The British Army takes a rather dim view of sodomy. You might have heard from your Mr. Bent that I was, variously, accused of visiting indignities upon youths in Calcutta, corrupting the junior ranks with the threat of disciplinary proceedings should they not succumb to my perverse demands, and even engaging in intercourse with a farmyard animal that differs in every version of the tale I have heard. The simple truth was, I fell in love. Unfortunately for the army, and for me, it was with a man.

Dr. John Reed was a medic attached to the regiment while we were stationed in Goa, formerly a Portuguese interest on the southwest coast of India. If paradise exists on Earth, then truly it is there. We would walk at sundown on Candolim Beach, where the sea fizzed with a most becoming phosphorescence as it broke on the golden sands. The fronds of palm trees swayed in the warm evening breeze and cows roamed freely while native women walked by in bright saris, holding fruit above their heads and murmuring in hypnotic, singsong voices
mango, banana, papaya,
over and over again.

Perhaps it was that sense of otherworldliness in Goa that caused us to drop our guard, but we consummated our love on the woodsmoke-wreathed dunes, and we became ever more careless about covering our tracks. Our indiscretions were duly discovered, and a court martial took place.

My previous good character and exemplary military service ensured I received an honorable discharge with the minimum of fuss; I was already known to the readers of the more breathless periodicals for my adventures and achievements. But what I did not know until the court martial was the past of my lover, Dr. Reed. No mere medical man was he: he was an explorer, archaeologist, adventurer, and more. He had signed up for a spell of military service to further his knowledge and experience, and the authorities decided his
curriculum vitae
was too good an opportunity to throw away for a mere punishment. So they offered us, behind closed courtroom doors, a deal.

Released from the shackles of military service, Dr. Reed would continue his adventures, free and without interference from the Crown. He would, however, be sometimes called upon to perform special tasks or undertake missions for Britain. Furthermore, as something of an inspiring fillip to the British public, his adventures would be recounted for publication on a regular basis. To ensure John could pass unhindered across the world’s borders and boundaries, his identity would remain innocuous; as someone with a proud military service behind me, I would instead be the figurehead for these stories, which, having something of a poetic bent, I would also pen.

And so began a long and fruitful association. And, yes, a happy one. John and I were in love, and if his enforced absences were bitter, then our reunions were oh so sweet. I see you wincing, Mr. Bent. Perhaps you are also wondering why I did not accompany John on his missions and tours. The truth was, after a lifetime of military service, I had had enough of traversing the world and putting myself in peril. To sit at home in Grosvenor Square and await John’s return while I crafted the tale of his latest adventure . . . that to me was bliss.

And so it continued. But in the last few years, John was called upon more and more by the Crown, much more often than they had ever indicated they would. His travels became an imposition; the danger mounted in each new mission. And sometimes, when he did have the satisfaction of earning the ancient artifacts and lost treasures he had fought so hard for, the Government would remove them from his possession. It troubled me to see John growing increasingly bitter and jaded.

Then, a year ago, he announced he was going to Egypt. During that very episode you mention, Mr. Smith, the
Shadow Over Faxmouth
event, John had learned from Professor Halifax about a lost tomb in the desert, the fabled Rhodopis Pyramid. It was said to hold great treasures and artifacts lost to humanity for two and a half thousand years. John was determined to find the lost pyramid and breach its walls. Last summer he departed upon his quest.

And I have not seen him since.

I contacted many of his traveling companions and regular acquaintances, of course, but aside from confirmation that he had indeed flown by dirigible to Alexandria, there was nothing. Why did I not go out there myself to find him? Alas, I have grown soft and weak since I left the regiment. When there was no word from John I sank into even deeper decline, and a melancholia has gripped me that I fear will never be shaken off. It is as though my heart has been rent in two, and half of it has whispered away. I very much expect I shall die before I ever seen John again, merely fading away in the shadows of this house.

From John Reed’s “Unsolved Files”:

Another summons from W. I confess I am getting heartily sick of the man’s attitude. He seems to think I am but a dog to be ordered around, to roll over and play dead and perform tricks for him. This is not the deal we struck. W. is calling on my services more and more, so much that I spend more time in the employ of the Crown than I do on my own errands. This time there has been some kind of burglary at the British Museum. A burglary! Is this not work for Scotland Yard?

W. met me at the British Museum. It is quite rare for him to turn up on a job these days. The place was closed up, and the curator took us to the halls were the Egyptian relics were kept. One cabinet had been smashed crudely open, and the artifact snatched.

“What was it?” I asked the curator.

“A
shabti,
” he said, and showed me a drawing of a small funerary figurine. It was well made and intact, but I had seen dozens of them in my time.

“Valuable?”

“Not particularly,” said the curator.

“And not worth the effort put into stealing it,” added W.

I inspected the smashed cabinet. “Not a very professional job,” I noted. “There was no guard on duty?”

“There was,” said W. “The past tense being appropriate.” He lowered his voice. “Whoever was in here last night tore him to shreds. Literally.”

Around the cabinet were signs of a scuffle. There was indeed blood, which W. confirmed was from the guard. And more . . . dried mud? I took a sample for testing.

How curious. Analysis of the mud samples from the British Museum reveals it to be a compound of a variety of different sources. The bulk of it is from the banks of the Thames, but there are traces of composted Egyptian lotus, which grows in abundance on the banks of the Lower Nile. Our burglar is evidently of an aquatic bent, and well traveled at that.

Notes on the Atlantic Submersible Mission

Lucian,

As promised, here are my notes on the submersible jolly with the Royal Navy. After that stunt W. pulled as soon as we docked in Portsmouth, I’m not even sure it will make a suitable piece for
World Marvels & Wonders at all.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of excitement. That episode alone with the giant squid that tried to crack open the sub has enough drama to keep the story moving, along with that Viking longship on the seabed, You’ve probably got the basis for a decent little tale. But my heart is not in the whole enterprise.

I was really quite excited about that artifact we found among the Viking hoard. It was a strange apparatus and no mistake, with a hard, glassy surface; it looks for all the world like a model of a human brain.

W____ took that off with him, of course. He did leave me some of the rest of the hoard, and I had it dated down at the British Museum. Among the treasures was a seal bearing the hieroglyph of the Pharaoh Amasis II, which was translated as being a label for clothing and chattels belonging to one Rhodopis. This is the second time I have heard this name, the first being from Professor Halifax in connection with that monstrosity I pursued to Faxmouth. You remember Reg, of course. Sad loss. I do wonder, though . . . is the fabled Rhodopis Pyramid he spoke of stuffed with such treasures?

One for a future jaunt, perhaps. Duty calls, at least this time only to Edinburgh. I will be back home before you know it.

All my love, John

From John Reed’s Journals

W. is up to something. W. is
always
up to something, but a theme seems to be emerging: Egypt. The strange brainlike artifact he took possession of following the Viking exploration on the bottom of the Atlantic was of Egyptian origin; then there was that murder and burglary at the British Museum, and he has since taken an inordinate interest in that business in Arkhamville. The latest piece in the puzzle comes from Walton Jones, whom I ran into in Bombay.

Oh, I do not flatter myself that W. employs only me for his missions across the world. He has many fingers in many pies. I learned that when we tackled Von Karloff on Everest and discovered that the Prus sian had been sent to steal the Golden Apple of Shangri-La on W’s explicit orders. That was when I first began to doubt W, to mistrust him.

I can quite understand W. employing the services of Von Karloff, but Walton Jones? The man is a base tomb robber, despite his claims of archaeological expertise and the fact that his young son Henry is, I understand, something of a brilliant medievalist even at his tender age, and bound for Oxford by all accounts. Jones Senior is nothing but a thief, and an indiscreet one at that. After a few gins in Bombay, his tongue was wagging like the tail of a mangy hound. He simply couldn’t wait to tell me about his last mission, and the scroll he had procured for W.

It was a simple errand—his son could doubtless have pulled it off—that saw Jones in the Persian Gulf, where an alleged djinn was causing trouble to a garrison of British troops. Of course, it turned out to be nothing more than mischievous local tribes; I could have told W. that without even leaving Grosvenor Square. But while there Jones chanced upon an ancient papyrus scroll, Egyptian in origin, which he handed over to W. like a needy child desperate for a pat on the head.

“And what was of interest in the scroll?” I asked nonchalantly.

Jones tapped his nose with his forefinger, then proceeded to tell me anyway half an hour later. “Plans for some kind of ancient weapon, apparently. W. was most interested.”

“Weapon? What kind of weapon?” I asked, interested myself.

Jones shrugged. “Don’t know for sure. But it doesn’t really matter, because the scroll put the thing in the pyramid of Rhodopis, which we all know nobody is going to find any time soon.”

And there it was again. Rhodopis. W. is evidently assembling some kind of evidence for the existence of, as Jones would have it, a weapon of some description, buried in the lost tomb of Rhodopis. Unlike Walton Jones, I do not choose to underestimate W. His tendrils reach far and wide, and his resources are many and great. If W. is interested in the Rhodopis Pyramid, perhaps I should be interested as well. Whether he has designs on this so-called weapon for the good of the Empire or to feather his own nest, I would much rather find it first myself. Mr. W. must be made to understand that he cannot have everything his own way, and that the wonders of the world are not his alone to plunder.