The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats

by Mark Hodder

  “Has Lord Elgin’s bombing of the Old Summer Palace really so incited the Qing Dynasty that an attack upon the empire is imminent?”

  “Not in the slightest bit. It’s utter humbug. The Opium War is won and done with. There is tension but no danger, no impending conflict, no spies, no threat at all.”

  Burton pushed himself to his feet and, with his thumbs hooked into his waistcoat pockets, his chin down, and his brow creased, strode back and forth across the room, his boots making no noise on the plush crimson carpet. After a minute had passed, he murmured, “And the king? He holds executive authority. Can he not put a stop to this?”

  Gladstone took an empty glass from the table and extended it toward Swinburne. The poet lifted a wine bottle and poured.

  “The fact that he hasn’t done so suggests that he’s in on the game.”

  The explorer grunted. “What about the newspapers? Don’t they offer you a platform?”

  “Who do you think owns them, sir? Even those that claim to back my Liberal Party are the property of peers. Did you read the piece I wrote for the Daily Bugle? It was so heavily edited that my scathing condemnation of the government was somehow transformed into nominal support.”

  Burton stopped pacing and faced the politician.

  “What on earth do you expect of me?”

  Gladstone examined his glass of wine, raised it, hesitated, and put it aside.

  “You were not long ago Mr. Disraeli’s swashbuckler. Now I want you to be mine. Find out what’s happening to our aristocrats.”

  “What’s happening to them? I should think it obvious. As you say, they are making their position inviolable.”

  “They are disappearing.”

  “What?”

  “The House of Lords is less than two-thirds full, and its numbers dwindle with every session. Votes are being posted in. Absences are notable, too, at every event favoured by the nobility. Ballrooms are half empty. Gentlemen’s clubs are all but abandoned. The horse tracks are losing money.”

  “Posted in, you say? So disappearing from view but still active?”

  “Apparently. Will you look into the matter? I can’t match the stipend you earned as the king’s agent, but the Shadow Cabinet has allowed for a certain allocation of party funds to be made available for your commission.”

  Burton shrugged. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  Gladstone withdrew a folded sheet of paper from inside his jacket. “Some of those who’ve not been seen for the past few weeks are listed here. Also—” He paused, reached for his wine, and this time took a sip. “Also, might I suggest that, if you and Mr. Swinburne are being followed, perhaps you should follow the followers?”

  “To what end?”

  “To discover who and why. I suspect that I’m also under observation, as are a number of my colleagues. If there has been established some manner of secret agency for such nefarious purposes, then it must be exposed to the public, else we are closer than ever to a totalitarian state.”

  Burton hissed a breath out through his teeth. He removed his thumbs from his pockets and took the proffered list. Scanning the names—many had addresses written next to them—he immediately recognised three: Lord John Manners, Henry Thomas Hope, and Alexander Baillie-Cochrane.

  “The original Young Englanders,” he muttered. His eyes flicked up, met, and held Gladstone’s. “Very well. I’ll undertake the job. Do I have a free hand?”

  “Take whatever action you deem appropriate within the bounds of the law.”

  “The latter part of that statement may prove difficult. The law is becoming ever more restrictive. If I’m found out, I’m liable to be declared a traitor.”

  “Indeed so, but I haven’t the authority to grant you immunity. Whatever risks you take must be on your own account.”

  “In that case, I shall try very hard not to shoot anybody.”

  Gladstone stood, looked with distaste at the glass in his hand—he’d taken but a single sip from it—and put it down. He brushed at his sleeve and moved toward the door. “If you need to speak with me again, leave a message at this establishment.”

  “You visit it frequently?” Burton gave Swinburne a sidelong glance.

  Gladstone squared his shoulders. “I have promised to strengthen the moral character of its inhabitants and will not give up on them, sir.”

  Swinburne added, “Mr. Gladstone probes the rectitude of each of the girls in turn, Richard.”

  “Tiring work,” Burton commented.

  “Quite so, but I stand firm,” Gladstone declared.

  “I’m sure you do.”

  With a nod, the leader of the opposition turned and reached for the door handle. Before he could touch it, there came a commotion from the other side of the portal. He stepped back as it suddenly flew open, and a man burst in, panting and dishevelled.

  “Trounce!” Burton exclaimed.

  Wheezing breathlessly, the detective inspector looked wide-eyed at the leader of the opposition and gasped, “By Jove! You’re Gladstone, aren’t you?”

  “I can explain my presence,” Gladstone said. “I am attempting to—”

  “Never mind about that,” the Scotland Yard man snapped. “They’re not after you. You’ll be safer if you remain here. But you two—” He jabbed a finger at Burton and Swinburne. “Follow me at once—or you’re dead men!”

  FIGHTING ON ROOFTOPS AND PLOTTING IN CATACOMBS

  WHAT IS KILLING OUR CLAIRVOYANTS?

  The Mysterious Toll Continues

  Eleven Unexplained Fatalities in the Past Week

  “My hat!” Swinburne cried out. “What the devil—?”

  Trounce sprang forward, grabbed the poet by the collar, and dragged him kicking and squealing out of the room. “Come on! Come on! There’s not a second to spare!”

  Burton gave Gladstone a quick nod and followed Trounce and Swinburne, grabbing his cane as he exited the chamber but leaving his hat and coat. Malazo was waiting in the corridor. Trounce said to the African, “Show me.”

  “This way, sir.”

  The tall man strode quickly to the end of the passage farthest from the stairs and opened a door. “This is the one.”

  A woman’s panicked scream sounded from the floor below. Voices were raised in protest. Others, demanding and harsh, shouted incomprehensible commands. There was a crash that sounded like furniture being knocked over.

  Trounce pushed Swinburne into the room. Burton followed, and Malazo closed the door behind him, shutting them in. They heard a key turn in the lock and a scrape as it was removed.

  “Take this,” Trounce said. He pushed a revolver into Burton’s hand. “If it comes to it, shoot them in the head. You’ll probably have to empty the chamber before they go down.” He handed over a box of cartridges, which Burton slipped into his jacket pocket.

  “Who, Trounce?”

  “The SPG.”

  It meant nothing to Burton.

  The room, like the one they’d just left, was luxurious, with velvet drapes, a plush carpet, and gilt-framed pictures hung on its floral wallpaper. Romanesque statuettes were arranged on its furniture, and a four-poster bed extended out from the wall to their right. The latter was occupied by a skinny, long-bearded fellow and an extremely curvaceous—to the point of being bulbous—young lady, both sitting up amid a tangle of silk sheets. Their mouths were hanging open in shock. Neither was suitably dressed for the reception of guests, a fact reflected in the rapidly deepening scarlet of the man’s face.

  “What ho, gymnasts!” Swinburne said to them, as Trounce hurried across to the window and yanked it open. “We’re just passing through. Don’t let us interrupt your contortions.”

  After leaning out and examining the exterior wall to the left, the detective inspector snapped at Burton, “Out and up. You first, Algy next, and I’ll follow. Hurry.”

  Shouts and thumps came from the corridor. Someone yelled, “Get off me!” More screams. The slamming of doors.

  Burton stepped
to the window and saw metal rungs affixed to the brickwork outside. They went up but not down. He climbed onto the sill, reached out, gripped one, and swung himself out onto the ladder. As he ascended it, keeping a careful hold of his swordstick, he heard Swinburne say, “Goodnight, my lovelies. Mind you don’t strain yourselves.”

  Fog swirled around the explorer as he climbed the short distance to the roof. This was, he surmised, the brothel’s escape route, used when the police conducted one of their very occasional raids. He wondered whether one was occurring now but thought it unlikely. Trounce was too perturbed. This was something far more serious.

  The roof proved to be of the gambrel type, the metal rungs of the ladder continuing past the gutter up the steep outermost slope but stopping at the edge of the inner, topmost one, which rose at a shallow enough angle that Burton was able to stand upon it, though it was slippery with a thick powdering of ash and soot. He bent and gave Swinburne a helping hand.

  Trounce’s voice came up from below. “Keep going. To the right.”

  Holding on to each other for balance, Burton and Swinburne moved carefully forward. It was exceedingly dark, the city’s nighttime lights contributing only the faintest of glows to the billowing vapour.

  They heard a splintering report as the door to the room below was broken open. The woman shrieked.

  Trounce caught up with them. He grabbed Burton’s elbow, pointed toward a tall chimneystack, dimly visible ahead, and hissed, “We’ll get behind that. No choice but to shoot it out. We’ll not outrun them.”

  Gingerly, across slick tiles, they traversed the slope.

  “Stop!” a voice demanded. “In the name of the king.”

  “Who are they?” Swinburne whispered as they reached the chimney and crouched behind it.

  “Devils,” Trounce growled. “Look out! Here they come.” He raised his pistol. “Remember, aim for the heads, multiple shots. It’s the only way. By Jove, what I wouldn’t give for a rifle!”

  Burton knelt, peered around the corner of the brickwork, and aimed his gun at a moving light.

  “Is there no weapon for me?” Swinburne asked.

  “Can’t risk it,” Trounce murmured. “You’re a rotten shot.”

  “So what should I do? Compose a damaging verse?”

  A patch of greater darkness divided and coalesced into three eerily attenuated figures, thin-limbed and each with a bright blue light shining from the middle of its long face.

  Clockwork men!

  With deafening bangs, Trounce’s gun discharged—one, two, three shots in rapid succession. The lead figure staggered, sparks erupting from its head. Three more shots sounded, one of which missed, but the target righted itself, kept coming, and announced, “You have attacked a police officer. You are under arrest. Give yourselves up. Reinforcements have been summoned.”

  “Police officer?” Swinburne exclaimed. “Your people, Trounce?”

  “Hardly.”

  As they came closer, Burton was better able to make them out. He saw that—though the clockwork men followed the general design of such mechanisms—there were differences, the most notable being that they were taller, their heads extending upward into the shape of a constable’s helmet. Also, the middlemost of their three vertically-placed facial openings was a blue light rather than a grille and, from top to toe, the figures were painted black—at least as far as Burton could tell in the dark.

  “Shoot, man!” Trounce barked.

  Burton squeezed the trigger, aiming at the same machine Trounce had hit—at the light in its face. Recoils jerked his wrist but his aim was true. The mechanism reeled, its head jerking this way and that as some bullets ricocheted from its brass surface and others drilled through into the babbage device within. Folding at the knees, the machine collapsed onto the roof and lay twitching.

  Trounce had by now reloaded and was meting out the same punishment to one of the two remaining metal men, both of whom were rapidly closing on the chimney.

  Pulling the box of ammunition from his pocket and, with his upper arm, securing his cane against his body, Burton clicked open his weapon’s cylinder and quickly pushed cartridges into its chambers. He looked up and saw that the contraption Trounce was firing at had weathered the storm of lead but was now moving in an erratic manner, waving its arms and stumbling up toward the ridge of the roof to the right of them.

  The other flicked its hands outward causing truncheons to slide down along its forearms and click into place, extending out about eighteen inches. As it arrived at the chimney, Burton shot it in the face at near point-blank range. He staggered backward as a baton whipped sideways, missed his head by a hair’s breadth, and smacked into the brickwork, sending out a shower of red fragments.

  Swinburne screeched and scrambled away.

  Burton, half blinded by brick dust, aimed instinctively and put a second bullet into the contraption.

  “Halt!” it ordered. “You are—fzzzt!—committing an illegal—fzzzt!—act and must submit at once.”

  Trounce cried out as a down-swung truncheon caught him on the wrist. His revolver dropped from nerveless fingers, clattered over the tiles and plummeted out of sight.

  “You—fzzzt!—are Detective Inspector Trounce. You are aiding and—fzzzt!—abetting Algernon Charles Swinburne, an enemy—fzzzt!—of the state, and Sir Richard Francis Burton, who is wanted for—fzzzt!—questioning. Your involvement has been reported. You are under arrest.”

  Trounce ducked as the second club swiped at him. It smashed into the chimney. The structure rocked and two of its four clay pots fell and shattered on the tiles.

  “And you are assaulting a superior officer,” Trounce roared. “I order you to stop and withdraw!”

  In reply, a baton clubbed at his head, missing by inches as he jerked backward and sprawled onto the roof. Acting instinctively, he drew both knees up to his chest and kicked out hard at the chimney. It promptly collapsed and, with a roar of tumbling rubble, engulfed the clockwork man and carried him down the slope and off into empty space.

  Trounce started to slide after it.

  “Oh no you don’t!” Burton exclaimed. He plunged forward and stretched out his cane, the end of which Trounce managed to grasp.

  “By Jove!” the Yard man croaked as he was hauled to safety. “That was a close call. Where’s the other one?”

  “Here!” Swinburne called in a strangulated voice.

  They looked up and saw the last mechanism teetering on the roof’s ridge, its left hand clamped around the poet’s neck, the right gripping him by the thigh, holding him aloft as if preparing to fling him from the building.

  “I’ve got him!” Swinburne gurgled. “I’ve got him!”

  “You,” Burton said.

  He took careful aim and fired. Bang!

  “—and mechanical men,”

  Bang!

  “—and roofs,”

  Bang!

  “—should reevaluate the terms of your association.”

  The brass head suddenly erupted in flames as its babbage’s booby trap, triggered by a bullet, activated. Fire licked at Swinburne’s clothes.

  The contraption emitted a howl like that of a siren and dropped the poet.

  “Ow! Ow! Ow!” Swinburne hollered, as he landed on the opposite side of the roof and rolled out of sight.

  The constable’s head exploded with a deafening crack. The metal figure keeled over and followed Swinburne. Burton and Trounce heard it rattle across the tiles, then came a moment of silence followed a distant clank as it hit the ground two storeys below.

  “Algy!” Burton cried out.

  He scrabbled up the slope to the ridge, looked over, and, through the murk, saw white fingers clutching at the angle where the lower part of the gambrel roof met the top slope. Quickly but gingerly he slid down to them and peered over the lip. Swinburne looked up at him and grinned. “Hallo!”

  As Burton took hold of his wrist and pulled him up, the poet said, “How strange. I feel like we’ve done so
mething like this before.” He patted at his smouldering clothes. “Are they all dead?”

  “I don’t think we can claim that,” Burton responded, “but they’ve certainly developed a mechanical fault.”

  They returned to Trounce, who gestured toward the far end of the roof. “According to Malazo, there’s a ladder over there. We’d better hurry. More machines are assuredly are on their way. Gad! That damnable thing nearly broke my wrist. Hurts!”

  “Your face is bleeding,” Swinburne observed.

  The detective inspector put fingers to a cut just beneath his left eye. “A chunk of brick caught me. I’ll have a shiner by the morning.”

  As they started moving, Burton said, “What’s the story, William?”

  “It’s all gone to blazes.”

  “What has?”

  “The country. The government. Scotland bloody Yard. Last week, Chief Commissioner Mayne purchased two hundred and fifty of those abominations. They form a new department in the Police Force, called the Special Patrol Group, under a nasty piece of work of your acquaintance.”

  Burton knew instantly to whom Trounce was referring. “Rigby?”

  “The man himself.”

  They reached the edge of the roof and there, after searching for a minute, found rungs bolted to the wall. There was no further conversation until they’d each descended, then Trounce said, “Let’s find the rubble from that chimney. My revolver must be somewhere in amongst it. I can’t do without it. Quick now! We mustn’t dawdle.”

  Cradling his wounded wrist, he led them rapidly around a corner to the rear of Verbena Lodge, then pulled a clockwork lantern from his pocket, shook it open, wound it, and with the light that flooded from it, revealed a wet and brick strewn alleyway. Burton saw a half-buried brass man, stepped over to it, and picked up its severed head. “I think I’ll have Gooch take a look at this.”

  “Be careful,” Trounce advised. “The brain might still be functioning.”

  “No,” Burton countered. “Not when disconnected from the mainspring.”