Ministry Protocol: Thrilling Tales of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences

by Tee Morris

  *****

  “I apologise for the state of the place,” Arthur said as he put the trunk down and fumbled in his pockets a moment before producing a heavy brass key. “I must admit I have been positively frantic in my preparations for your arrival, and I fear it has left the place in quite a state.”

  “Think nothing of it,” Bernard replied.

  Despite the walk being largely uphill—a detail Arthur had neglected to mention, though Bernard’s aching shoulder would not soon forget—the house itself was quite lovely. It was set on a quiet lane of stately houses with small but well-maintained lawns, and even with the chill of the departing winter heavy in the air the street was bright and cheerful in the late afternoon light. The building was a design that seemed quite common to the area, slightly more narrow than most free-standing houses but three stories tall, with a peaked roof that spoke to heavy snowfalls during the year. Bernard was a bit taken aback when he realised that the paint on the house matched Arthur’s scarf almost exactly, but then again, one who works for the Ministry becomes accustomed to certain eccentricities.

  As it happened, Arthur had not been exaggerating at the state of the house —upon crossing the threshold Bernard could see the sitting room was coated in a layer of loose papers, all strewn about like autumn leaves. If there was an organisation to the material, it eluded his inspection, though as his eyes adjusted he could see that many of the papers had handwritten notes scrawled in the margins. Newspaper clippings were liberally dusted atop the mess, along with what appeared to be nautical charts with lines added in heavy, excited strokes. On the whole, though, it was a scene out of a circle of Hell constructed solely for the bedevilment of archivists.

  Fortunately, Bernard was no archivist.

  “Looks like you’ve been busy in the time since your last communiqué,” Bernard said with measured understatement, setting his valise and traveling cane down to remove his heavy fur-lined top coat. “These charts look promising.”

  “Ah! Yes! Let me explain those.” Arthur hurried over to the table, carefully set aside a stack of papers from a nearby chair and sat down. Bernard was left to hang his own coat with a faint sigh and find his own seat as the young researcher pushed papers into what was apparently some semblance of order to his eager eyes. Arthur opened his mouth to speak, then closed it with a look as though suddenly remembering something, and met Bernard’s gaze across the table. “Not that I don’t think you were fully briefed before departure, but—”

  “No, no,” Bernard put up a reassuring hand. “It’s always best to make sure there are no missing pieces or inaccurate assumptions. I studied the briefing documents on the voyage over, though I must confess that it seemed there were a number of…” His words trailed off for a moment as he thought of the most tactful way to put it. “…missing pieces, shall we say.”

  “Yes, well, I think I can fill those in now,” Arthur hurried to reply.

  “Then I will begin, and you fill me in as needed.” Bernard took off his spectacles and cleaned them with his pocket square in a series of neat, efficient motions. “According to the dossier, you have been working on a connection linking a number of suspicious fires and collapses for, what, three years now?” Arthur nodded. “And you believe that some sort of experimental device is behind it?”

  “Most certainly.” Arthur fished through the stacks of paper, pulled out a small leather bound journal, strained at the bindings and bulging with what appeared to be newspaper clippings, pages from academic journals and other scholarly miscellanea, and opened it up to a specific section marked by a wide elastic band. The young researcher presented the open pages to Bernard, revealing what appeared to be a patent from just over four years ago. The specifics of the engineering were quite out of Bernard’s depth, even just at a glance, but the name of the device was plain enough: Maritime Resonant Frequency Amplifier.

  “And what does this invention do, exactly?” Bernard asked.

  “In brief? It purports to be able to amplify aural waves and other forms of vibration. You create these vibrations in a specially designed chamber wherein they are captured by this device, then transmitted via a transatlantic cable—”

  “I say!” Bernard exclaimed.

  “—but far more advanced than Atlantic Telegraph’s. An all original design.” Arthur searched through what seemed to Bernard as random piles. “Let’s see, I had that patent here too. Blast!” On a pile situated behind him, Arthur gave a barely audible “Ah!” and then handed the paper to Bernard. “This proprietary transatlantic cable connects to a network of similarly designed receivers.”

  “A network?” Bernard tensed. A network implied that this investigation was going to be a bit more complex than anticipated. He had an aversion to complexity, at least of a kind that couldn’t be resolved in a suitably Gordian fashion. “I don’t recall anything about a network.”

  “It wouldn’t be in the file. I just learned of it myself, not four days ago.” Arthur shifted in his seat. “After learning the identity of one of the figures involved, I may have, ah, employed a fellow at the telegraph office to alert me when said individual receives any new correspondence.” He shrugged, motioning to the clutter around them. “With my limited funds from the Crown, I chose to invest in informants rather than filing cabinets.”

  “Good show!” Bernard said, with genuine warmth. Anything that got them away from reams of paper and out into the field was fine by his standards. “We’ll discuss a proper introduction with him presently. But first, this network?”

  “According to the correspondence that I—uhm—witnessed, there was mention made of several connected stations of identical design.” From another seemingly random stack, this time to the right of Bernard, Arthur dug up another page of scribbled notations. “Here we are. London, Leeds, Glasgow, Exeter, Dublin, and Limerick.”

  Bernard raised an eyebrow. “Quite a diverse array of locations.”

  “Indeed. And that’s not the strangest part of this technology.” Arthur produced a map, laid it across the top layer of papers and smoothed it with the side of his hand. “As I’m sure you know, the current transatlantic lines run from Canada on this side of the Atlantic. It’s simply the most cost effective for crossing the distance required. This project, however, rejected running cable from the conventional locations and chose instead to set up a base of operations out on Block Island, of all places. The costs involved must have been staggering, simply staggering.”

  “Block Island?” Bernard peered at the map but couldn’t find the location until Arthur indicated a tiny speck off the coast.

  “An extremely small island off the coast of Rhode Island, home to just over two hundred souls. A resort community with some fishing activity, nice enough I suppose but not exactly a bustling centre of transatlantic commerce.”

  “I see. How best to arrange a visit?” Bernard smiled, though as with most of his smiles the gesture had more in common with an animal baring its teeth than a display of affection. He sensed his sort of work in the near future, and it was the first good news he’d had this whole trip so far. “I suddenly find I’ve a mind to knock on their door and inquire about their business. Don’t you?”

  “I do. There’s a ferry that runs to the island daily,” Arthur said. “Should be no difficulty.”

  “Excellent. Now, about the device itself–to what end would they incur such massive additional costs, with less expensive alternatives readily available?” Bernard frowned. “That is, secrecy seems the goal, certainly, but that still does not speak to its function. Something to do with telephonics, perhaps?”

  “That was my assumption at first,” Arthur said. “But on closer inspection of the device’s design, its primary function is not to gather vibrations, but amplify and project them.”

  “Project them? As a weapon? Some sort of, I don’t know, aural cannon, perhaps?”

  “Possibly,” Arthur allowed, though his tone indicated the contrary. “I didn’t see anything that looked like it mig
ht be used for that purpose, but then, I’m not confident I really understand its purpose at all, so I’m afraid I may not be the best expert to consult in this circumstance.”

  “Hmm.” Bernard mused for a moment, still turning his spectacles over in his hands. “I have a feeling we know exactly the expert we might consult, but until then, it might be best to focus our efforts elsewhere.” He set aside the documents and journal, and turned back to Arthur to ask, “Your report mentioned a conspiracy behind these actions? These so-called True Sons of Henry?”

  “Took a bit of digging to uncover that connection, let me tell you.” He leafed through one of the nearby stacks, took out a thick sheaf of yellowed papers that looked about ready to turn to dust with little more than a hard look. He carefully handed them across to Bernard, who replaced his spectacles and peered down at the neat columns and their shaky, spidery script. “I started with the inventor, Richard Henry, the reason I brought you to New London. Given the expenses involved in this project, I started looking into his family, just to see where the money was coming from. Can you imagine what I found?”

  “I’d rather hear it,” Bernard said, trying not to be too harsh but also wary of over-indulging Arthur’s evident excitable streak when it came to research. That was the trouble with archivists. Sometimes they tended to enjoy the digging so much they forgot other people often didn’t share their love of riddles and guesswork.

  “Right,” Arthur said, his face reddening. “As far as the funding of this endeavour, I couldn’t find a damn thing. I mean, family money, clearly, but it must be the most conservatively managed fortune I’ve ever seen. Up until this new venture, anyway. What did catch my attention was the fact that the same partners kept showing up in those ventures they did back, so I looked into those names. All with the Henry surname. I deduced it must have been an extended family, but then I discovered these family trees never connected. Now while you may think Henry is a common name like Smith, Jones, or Morris, it is not as unexceptional as one might—”

  “Arthur…” Bernard warned.

  “Right. Sorry.” With a nod, he continued. “Look at this. Census records from Boston, 1631. Take note of this curious stretch on this page here–see all those men, surname Henry? All approximately the same age? That’s where it started, at least in this country.”

  “Not exactly a subtle lot as conspirators go,” Bernard said, decidedly unimpressed. “I remember the rest. This is when you started writing the home office, correct?” He smiled almost despite himself. “As I recall from my departure briefing, you made quite a pest of yourself for some time, asking after those records. No, don’t apologise. It’s a good trait in an investigator, to be sure.”

  “Thank you,” Arthur said, clearly pleased at the compliment and recovering a bit of his poise in the process. “As it turns out, this group of young men—all younger sons of old but lesser families in the peerage—met at university and somehow got it in their heads that they could trace common ancestry to a heretofore unknown legitimate son of Henry I. No idea what brought on this delusion—”

  Bernard scoffed. “I blame university,” he interjected. “Too much time for idle speculation. Leads to foolishness, particularly in groups.”

  “You didn’t attend?” Arthur said, looking surprised.

  “Oh, I did.” Bernard made a show of inspecting his nails. “I was simply asked to leave not long after matriculating. Some hurt feelings, and a bit of broken furniture. Best for everyone, really.”

  “I see.” Arthur coughed politely. “In any event, however silly their notion of their ancestry, it seems the authorities were obliged to investigate after they made public some of their ‘ancient and viable’ claims, and the boys fled to Boston soon after. It doesn’t look like any serious effort was made to track them down, however.”

  “‘The wicked man flees though no one pursues,’” Bernard said with a shrug. “It’s a lot more likely these lads heard someone was coming around to put them to the question or, more likely, give them a slap for talking nonsense. They let their imaginations get carried away to the point where the Star Chamber was convening a whole session especially for them. I’ve seen their type before. This lot was just rich enough to make a real go of it.”

  “It seems as though they’ve been stewing here ever since,” Arthur said. “When you know what to look for, it’s not terribly difficult to find the connections. They stayed close, and—I must admit—aside from the ridiculous surname business, well, they have certainly kept collars up and brims down, as my father used to say.”

  “So it would seem,” Bernard agreed, opting against re-iterating that hiding was simple when no one sought to find you. “First class work, Arthur. You certainly put in your due diligence.”

  “You really think so?” Arthur said. “I actually put in a request to join the Research and Development division not too long ago, see if I can’t do some field testing. I’ve a knack for mechanical improvisation, and I’ve been working on a couple of gadgets—”

  “Arthur. One matter at a time, yes?”

  Arthur bowed his head, but added, “I wish I wasn’t still left with quite so many questions. Why have they been present at six of the last eight significant landslides and avalanches in New England in the past four years? What’s the connection?”

  “Precisely what headquarters felt worth investigating, combined with your exhaustive reports and their own bizarre family history, of course,” Bernard said, standing and doing his best to stretch a bit. Stiff muscles were of little use to anyone, him most of all. “Don’t be too hard on yourself—you’ve done brilliant work, but you can’t be expected to do it all.”

  “So what do we do now?” Arthur asked, also rising.

  “Why, dinner of course. Somewhere with a decent menu, if there is such a place in New London?” Bernard could hardly contain another predatory grin, which he hoped Arthur took in its intended spirit of good humour. Despite the miserable voyage, the deplorable manners of the Americans, and the overall stifling lack of importance that pervaded this shadow of a country, he had still come to work. And that he truly adored. “In the morning, we head to Block Island and see this Richard Henry. I’m quite confident he’ll be happy to answer our remaining questions.”

  “He will?” Arthur asked, a bit dubious but clearly not eager to contradict him.

  “He will,” Bernard concurred, taking up his cane with a flourish. “As it happens, I am excellent at asking questions. A very specific kind.”