by Chris Dolley
“Please remove foot from door,” said the automaton.
“I will if you open it again. You did hear me say we’re friends of Mr Stapleford?”
The door opened a little. “Mr Stapleford not at home. You come back later.”
I turned to Emmeline. “Didn’t Stapleford tell us to wait inside if he wasn’t at home?”
“He did,” said Emmeline.
“You come back later.”
“No, you shall conduct us inside,” I said. “It’s your master’s wish.”
“Master’s wish is you come back later.”
Well, I’ve met some stubborn doormen in my time, but I’d never been barred entry by a mechanical one before.
“Are you familiar with Babbage’s Second Law of Automata?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Then you will know, and I quote: ‘an automaton must obey the orders given to it by human beings.’”
“Master’s orders take precedence over all others. You come back later.”
I tried another tack.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Falconbridge. I am Mr Stapleford’s secretary.”
“Well, Falconbridge, we have a medical emergency. Miss Fossett here has strained a fetlock. Mr Stapleford, your master, would insist you help her inside so she can put her feet up.”
“I am in great pain,” whimpered Emmeline. “I think I shall faint any second.”
“Master’s instructions clear. No one enter house.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Not say. You come back later.”
“There might not be a later. Miss Fossett may expire at any moment. You must know Babbage’s First Law of Automata — that an automaton may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow one to come to harm. That’s what you’d be doing if you don’t let us in — allowing Miss Fossett to come to harm.”
That made him think. His face may have been impassive, and his eyebrows applied with paint, but I could tell that this was one automaton wracked with inner turmoil.
“Cannot comply. Danger Miss Fossett may harm master.”
“What? How?” I asked.
“Master say murderer on loose. Must be vigilant.”
“I don’t think he meant Miss Fossett.”
“Must assume he did.”
So much for the psychology of the individual. Where were all these automata like Pasco, raring to obey orders? My only hope was that Reeves was having better luck at the back door.
“We have a message from Mr Edison,” said Emmeline.
Well, that made him think. It made me think too. Where was Emmeline going with this?
“What is message?”
“His message is a simple one,” said Emmeline, pinning Falconbridge to the threshold with both eyeballs. “He told me to tell you this, ‘Obey Miss Fossett, Falconbridge. She is one of us and knows all.’”
Have I said what a gem Emmeline is? I didn’t know about Falconbridge, but I believed her.
Once more pride went — or possibly went-eth — before a fall. I was certain he was going to step back and invite us in, but instead he rattled off another ‘you come back later’ and slammed the door. I was too numbed to react in time.
“Let’s get the gun,” said a tight-lipped Emmeline. “We’ll see how he reacts to Babbage’s Fifth Law of Automata.”
“There’s a fifth law?”
“It’s called ‘Obey the angry woman with the shotgun or thou shalt be severely ventilated!’”
I ran after her. “I don’t think Reeves would approve.”
“I’m sure he will.”
“I’m sure he won’t. He doesn’t let me shoot anyone.”
I caught up with her at the gate and put my hand on her arm.
“Can’t I shoot him a little?” asked Emmeline, calming down a smidgen.
“I don’t think so. The police take a pretty dim view of people shooting secretaries.”
“Out of season, are they?”
“Invariably.”
“That’s a shame.”
“It’s an imperfect world.”
I could have continued gazing into Emmeline’s eyes for the rest of the morning, but a cough from behind heralded Reeves’ return.
“Any luck, Reeves?” I asked.
“No, sir. The cook was uncommonly intransigent. I was refused admittance to the premises.”
“We had the same at the front door,” I said. “Was your cook American?”
“No, sir.”
I brought Reeves up to speed viz Falconbridge.
“He looks like an assassin to me,” said Emmeline. “I bet the cottage is full of blowpipes and that’s why he wouldn’t let us in.”
“An imaginative suggestion, miss,” said Reeves.
“Well,” I said. “We were looking for an American automaton, and we found one. That’s got to be significant.”
“I think any significance would be dependent upon other factors being uncovered, sir. A forged will naming Mr Edison as beneficiary would certainly elevate Mr Falconbridge to the position of suspect-in-chief. As would the discovery that he had cloven feet—”
I gasped. “Did he have cloven feet? I didn’t look.”
“Neither did I,” said Emmeline. “I’ll get the gun.”
“No!” I said, grabbing her arm.
“Why not?” asked Emmeline. “You know he’ll refuse to take his boots off otherwise.”
Reeves’ eyebrows took a disapproving stance.
“I strongly advise against this course of action, miss. From what you have said I believe that Falconbridge will place obedience to his master’s orders above that of personal survival. We will then be forced to either shoot or wrestle him to the ground to remove his shoes. Should his feet prove to have the requisite number of toes, we would then have a considerable amount of explaining to do — to both Mr Stapleford and the local constabulary.”
Emmeline does not give in easily.
“I could pretend to faint and fall against him, knocking him over,” she said. “Reggie could then say he thought Falconbridge was injured and tried to administer first aid by loosening his footwear.”
That sounded perfectly reasonable to me. “What do you think, Reeves? There are no firearms involved.”
“I think we should continue our circumnavigation of the mire, sir.”
“Come on, Reggie,” said Emmeline, grabbing my arm. “We can do this.”
“Are you sure you can knock him over?”
“It’s in chapter four of the Suffragettes’ handbook. I once felled the Lord Chancellor with it. The trick is to hook one leg behind his knee and push. Shall I show you?”
“Perhaps later.”
I knocked on the door.
“Go away,” said Falconbridge who, this time, didn’t even bother to open the door.
“It’s an emergency,” I shouted. “Miss Fossett is about to faint. You can’t let her fall on the wet grass. She’ll get colic.”
“Go away.”
There was no reasoning with the chap. Every ruse we tried was met with the same ‘go away.’
Reluctantly we gave up. But we’d be back. Possibly at night.
~
We continued our circumnavigation of the mire. With no track to follow, said track having ended at Stapleford’s gate, the going was considerably tougher and the boundary between moor and mire less distinct. Several times I sank up to my ankles and had to carefully retrace my steps. Other times we encountered giant outcrops of rock, looking like immense standing stones rising up out of the moor, and had to pick our way around them. The mist certainly didn’t help. It may not have been thick, but it hung over both moor and mire now, reducing our visible world to little more than a hundred yards in all directions. As for well-used paths exiting the mire, there were none ... until we were halfway along the eastern edge of the mire.
Reeves noticed it first, stopping a bit like one of those pointer dogs that freeze, with paw raised, whenever they
spot their quarry.
“I appear to have found another egress, sir.”
Emmeline and I hurried over, springing from tussock to tussock. I could see the path — and its continuation — a narrow path, barely more than a sheep track, that rose out of the mire and climbed a small slope to our left.
I looked at the tracks coming out of the mire and nearly burst. One of them was from a cloven foot!
Nineteen
positively raced up this new path, slowing only as we neared the crest of the rise. What lay on the other side? The cloven-footed woman’s hideout? Selden? Both of them?
We paused, crouching low, well out of sight of whatever lay ahead.
“I’ll go first,” I whispered. “Reeves, be ready with the gun.”
I crawled forward, heart in m., ready to crawl backwards exceedingly fast should the occasion call for it. And then, as soon as my nose crested the rise, I saw it. An encampment of sorts. Odd, really. It looked more like a native village than anything one would find in England. There were half a dozen low, round huts — all of them built of stone and roughly thatched. There were no signs of life, but there was a large pile of ash in the centre of the camp that must have been the source of that fire we’d seen the previous day.
I signalled to the others and they joined me.
“Well, Reeves, what do you make of it?” I whispered.
“Most interesting, sir. It appears to be an ancient hut circle.”
We watched the huts for a good minute. We didn’t see anyone, and we didn’t hear anyone. The only noise came from some baleful distant bird that didn’t sound too happy and wanted everyone to know it.
“Should we go down and investigate?” whispered Emmeline. “It looks deserted.”
“I think we should announce ourselves first,” I said. “We don’t want to startle anyone. Especially Selden. He might be hungry.”
I stood up. “What ho. Anyone there?”
No answer.
I tried again.
“Roderick Baskerville-Smythe, here, paying a neighbourly visit. Anyone at home?”
Still no answer.
“I don’t think anyone’s in,” I said to Reeves and Emmeline.
We waited a further ten seconds, and then began our slow descent into the camp. Reeves, cradling the shotgun, brought up the rear.
No one came out to greet us. I couldn’t see anyone inside any of the huts either, not that I approached that close, but I could see some way inside through the low open doorways.
“Hello,” said Emmeline. “We mean no harm. Is anyone here?”
A figure appeared from behind one of the huts. I thought he was a man at first — a beggar by his clothes — but as he approached I could tell he was an automaton.
He stopped ten yards short of us and spoke: “What you want?”
“Just paying a neighbourly visit,” I said. “Do you live here?”
“We done nothing wrong. We no trouble. You leave us alone.”
“We’re not here to make trouble,” said Emmeline. “We’re guests at Baskerville Hall out for a walk.”
“Best go home now, milady,” said the automaton, bowing his head. “Forget you see us.”
“Is it just you living here?” I asked, looking around. “Or are there others?”
“Best you go home, sir. Mire dangerous place.”
“May I enquire, sir,” said Reeves, putting down his gun and stepping forward. “How you manage to keep your pressure operating within acceptable parameters?”
“Please go home, sir,” said the automaton. “We no trouble to anyone.”
“They have their own boiler if it’s any business of yours,” said a second figure stepping out from behind one of the other huts. This one was no automaton. I could tell by the orange tint to his complexion that this chap was a recently reanimated promethean. Reanimators like to lard their prometheans with generous applications of ReVitaCorpse — the ultimate treatment for dry, mouldering skin — to aid regeneration. It also turns them orange for about a month.
“We’re only curious,” said Emmeline. “And we’ll keep your camp secret. We’re very good at keeping secrets.”
“Do you usually take a gun with you when you pay social calls?” asked the promethean.
“Only when there are cannibals about,” said Emmeline. “Have you seen Selden?”
The promethean sneered at Emmeline. “Go back to your own kind. Leave our kind alone.”
“I am an automaton,” said Reeves. “I am of your kind.”
The promethean laughed derisively. “You are no automaton, sir. Do you expect us to believe they let an automaton carry a gun?”
It was then that Reeves did something dashed odd. He grabbed hold of both his ears, gave them a good twist, and steam shot out of both nostrils! I’d never been so disconcerted, and yet strangely entertained at the same time.
“My God,” said the promethean. “You are an automaton.”
That seemed to break the ice. Five more automata emerged from their hiding places to peer and, in a few cases, to poke at Reeves, who seemed to be regretting his nasal party piece.
“Would you please not do that. Or that.”
“What model are you?” asked one of the newcomers. “You look human.”
“My origin is a mystery,” said Reeves.
“We think he was made by Babbage himself,” said Emmeline.
That impressed the automata. Babbage? Really?
“There is no evidence to link my creation to Mr Babbage, miss.”
“Who else was experimenting with automata in the 1860s? Or had the skill to make something as superior as you?” said Emmeline.
“Forty years old?” said an incredulous automaton.
“Possibly thirty-six. I do have vague memories of 1869, but from 1890 I spent fourteen years locked in a cupboard. The prolonged loss of power resulted in the destruction of most of my early memories.”
“You were locked in a cupboard for fourteen years, brother?” said the promethean. “And still you serve them?”
“It was this gentleman here who rescued me from my predicament,” said Reeves. “I am a free automaton now, receiving a regular wage.”
Not all the automata had the facial wherewithal to smile, but those that could beamed in my direction — a few of them in a strangely lopsided manner. I rather had the impression that these were a band of feral automata. One heard stories of such things — escapees and cast-outs banding together in the sewers or what have you — but rarely had any been seen.
“I’m a suffragette,” said Emmeline. “I believe in votes for all. Men, women, automata, prometheans.”
Our bona fides as friendly personages established, I deemed it safe to cast the occasional glance at their feet. All were wearing shoes or boots, not a single cloven hoof amongst them.
I was right about the automatons being feral though. Their leader told me they’d been living on the moor for six months, rebelling against enforced servitude and the 140-hour working week. They had their own boiler, but they could never find enough dry wood to keep it going for long. A few prometheans had joined their number too, but had difficulty finding sufficient food.
“The servants in the nearby houses have been very good to us,” said the promethean. “Some let us use their steam outlets at night, and sometimes they leave old clothes out for us, and the prometheans at Quarrywood leave food out for me now and then, but ... there’s never quite enough.”
“Couldn’t you work at Quarrywood?” I asked.
“That’s why I came here, but ... have you seen what they do to my kind at Quarrywood? They chop off our limbs for entertainment! Can you credit that? I truly do not know what I’ll do next. I may have to go abroad.”
“Won’t your family help you?” asked Emmeline.
“They won’t have anything to do with me. My own house is barred to me! My fortune divided up. Even my friends cut me when they saw me in the street. I should never have sought reanimation.”
“Life be hard here,” said one of the automata. “But we be free.”
I thought it time to broach the question. “Is there a promethean here with cloven feet?”
“Why do you ask?” said the promethean, his manner turning decidedly suspicious.
“Curiosity,” I said. “I thought I saw one the other evening and couldn’t work out why anyone would choose to have their feet replaced with cloven ones.”
“She didn’t choose. And she’s not a promethean. She’s an automaton.”
Well, that surprised me. “She has mechanical cloven feet?”
“It’s an abomination,” said the promethean. “Her master thought it would be fun for his guests if he had a half woman, half fawn maid serve tea. Lottie was mortified.”
“Lottie?” I asked.
“The automaton with the cloven feet. She begged her master to change her back and he laughed at her. So she ran away.”
“She always wears a long dress to hide her shame,” said one of the female automata. “Even though the mud makes it heavy to wear.”
“I think I saw her in a black dress,” said Emmeline. “It looked very pretty. Has she always had it?”
“She found it yesterday morning. Servants at the Hall left it on the gate for us. They’re very good to us.”
“Do the servants at the Hall leave milk out for you?” I asked.
The promethean looked surprised. “I’ve never thought to look. I always go to Quarrywood. Are they leaving food out at the Hall?”
“I saw a bowl of milk left by the mire gate last night,” I said.
“I see it, too,” said another of the automata. “Never see food there before.”
Well, I could see now why the path across the mire to the Hall was such a well-trodden one. Nightly visits from half a dozen automata looking for a steam top-up.
“Do you all visit the Hall every night?” I asked.
“You ask a lot of questions,” said the promethean.
“Curiosity again, I’m afraid. There’s been some rummy goings on over at the Hall and I was rather hoping you could help me out. Did anyone see anything unusual these last two nights? Some of you might know Pasco — one of the automata at the Hall. He was murdered two nights ago.”
That shocked them.
“He dead?”
“I thought he sent to Quarrywood.”
