Fellowship Fantastic

by Greenberg, Martin H.

  Fred gave a snort very similar to his Uncle Lloyd’s. “ ’Course I do. Hell, George, I may have been born at night, but I wasn’t born last night. That’s what brothers do, they go huntin’ together.”

  “They do at that,” Lloyd agreed. He turned to Art. “So, you wanna go do a little night fishin’, baby brother?” he asked.

  Art nodded. “Sure.”

  As the two older men moved off together, George watched them go with a wistful expression. “It makes me wish I’d had a brother,” he said quietly.

  Brandon tossed Fred a cigarette before lighting one for himself. “Well, it’s not just older brothers that teach little brothers, you know,” he noted. “Sometimes uncles teach nephews an’ cousins teach cousins.”

  “An’ it doesn’t matter what their names are, or what they can do with their minds,” Fred added. He jerked his head at his brother. “So, is it time?” he asked.

  Brandon nodded. As the two of them followed Art and Lloyd up the beach, his eyes went dark, the northern lights exploded across the sky, the gathered Mynakers, Akormans, Frawsts, and Geoffries all shouted out their admiration, and Fred snatched up their Uncle Lloyd’s case of special dark ale from the stack of coolers without breaking stride.

  THE ENIGMA OF THE SERBIAN SCIENTIST

  S. Andrew Swann

  It has long been my intent to publish the details of my friend’s extraordinary career. It is fortunate that I have lived long enough that, within limits, duty and the Crown have allowed me to publish some accounts of him who, for the sake of the narrative, I will name Sherwood Helms. It should be taken as an indication of his importance to the security and defense of the Empire that, even two decades after the Great War, his actual name is still a state secret.

  That summer, however, the Great War was still five years in the future; only visible in the glacial movements of continental diplomacy, the rhetoric of nationalist leaders, and the challenge a rising America was presenting old colonial powers.

  Of course, the coming war was also visible in the increased demands of the British Empire upon Helms, who was, after his brother, the most important agent of the Queen’s Secret Service.

  Helms and I had just returned from six months of travel taking us to several continental capitals as well as the Near East. And, as glad as I was to be back, I believe Helms was many times more so. Near the end of our mission, he had drifted into one of his prolonged melancholy episodes, and barely three words had passed between us from Madrid to London. Now, back in our flat on Baker Street, animation had retuned to his lanky frame, and he darted back and forth arranging papers and artifacts from our recent journey until they were organized to his satisfaction.

  While Helms moved about, I read through a stack of recent newspapers, casting aside my cosmopolitan interests to become a provincial Londoner again. Even so, I could not escape news of international import, as my papers were filled with stories from the United States of the death of the great former president and statesman, Abraham Lincoln, at the age of seventy-four.

  Helms was at the mantle, placing there an engraved Turkish scimitar that had been the linchpin in a series of sensitive events I cannot yet relate. He had just moved the Persian slipper to hold the blade in place when there was a knock on the door.

  “Come in, Mrs. Hudson.” Helms said. Then, turning toward me he said, “It seems we have a telegram.”

  Mrs. Hudson opened the door, and Helms took the paper from her. “Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Helms.”

  When she shut the door, Helms quickly read the telegram. I folded my paper and shook my head. “How did you—”

  Helms smiled and tossed me the short note. “Wilson, even you should be familiar with the tread of our landlady after so long in these rooms. I heard her answer the front door and she immediately shut it and came upstairs, without anyone accompanying her. So it was obviously a delivery.”

  “How is it you knew it was a telegram?” I asked.

  “It is too early for the post, and Mrs. Hudson climbed the stairs with a moderate urgency, showing she knew the message was of some importance. She would be too discreet to read a message addressed to us, and I heard no conversation, so the nature of the message itself alerted Mrs. Hudson to its significance—thus, a telegram.”

  “So simple,” I muttered. I picked up the telegram and read it myself. All it said was, “P.1 TODAY’S GAZETTE—MH.”

  MH was Helms’ brother. MH ran the Queen’s Secret Service from offices somewhere on Downing Street, and I only ever knew him from his initials. Helms had often told me that his brother was his intellectual superior, and was the most important man in the government. On occasion he would refer to MH as the government.

  I reread the cryptic telegram. “But what does it mean?”

  “A great light in the world has gone from the stage,” Helms said.

  I lowered the telegram and looked at the paper folded in my lap. A black-bordered picture of the late American president stared up at me. I wondered at the change of subject, but I said, “Yes, the death of Mr. Lincoln is a tragic loss.”

  Of course, as I should have by then been used to, I had misjudged my friend’s comment. “No, my dear Wilson, I do not refer to the late American president. His story is not tragedy. He was a great man whose long life and great deeds should be celebrated for the ages.”

  He then bent down and plucked the most recent paper, that day’s morning edition of the Gazette, from the stack by my chair.

  “What is tragic is the death of a man whose great works are yet ahead of him.” He folded the paper so I could see the tragic event he referred to. The picture of the man held a vague familiarity for me, one that crystallized when I read the headline: AMERICAN INVENTOR AND INDUSTRIALIST THOMAS ALVA EDISON FOUND SLAIN IN LONDON HOTEL ROOM.

  Helms shook his head. “In barely a decade he refined devices and machines too numerous to list. In the realm of electrical invention I know him to have only one equal—the intellect staggers at what his death might have stolen from us.” He quickly snapped the paper around so he could read fully the story of the late Edison’s demise.

  I was still taken aback at my friend’s reaction to the death of Mr. Lincoln. However, I well knew that there was one thing that commanded Helms’ respect above all else, and that was the power of rational thought. Politicians, diplomats, and philosophers, however worthy, would always occupy the second rank of human achievement to Helms. In his eyes, primacy was given most to men of science and reason.

  For a few moments, the newspaper commanded his attention completely. Deep in concentration, Helms cast an imposing figure. In height he was rather over six feet, and even while bent over, he was so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. He read with a piercing gaze and his thin, hawklike nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. As he read, his mouth tightened, and his jaw squared in grim determination.

  I had known him long enough, and had seen such miraculous displays of deduction and logic by him, that his next pronouncement did not startle me.

  “Wilson, we must move quickly; dark forces are at work.” He smacked my feet with the newspaper. “Hurry now, the game is afoot!”

  We had the unfortunate luck to hail one of those dirty motorized monstrosities that were at that time overtaking the role of a proper cab in London. Our travel was mute, the noise of the smoke-belching engine making any conversation impossible. However, I could see in my companion’s face the expression of nervous excitement that told me that he had already begun work on some great problem.

  I carried the paper with me, trying my best to discern exactly what had caused my friend’s urgency and his mysterious brother’s interest.

  Under Mr. Edison’s picture was the following story:AMERICAN INVENTOR AND INDUSTRIALIST THOMAS ALVA EDISON FOUND SLAIN IN LONDON HOTEL ROOM

  In the early morning hours today, the body of famed American inventor Thomas Alva Edison was discovered in h
is hotel room, dead from multiple gunshot wounds.

  The horrible scene was discovered by Mrs. Alvin Macintosh, long-time housekeeper for the Stanford-White Hotel. Upon calling on Mr. Edison’s rooms at six o’clock, Mrs. Macintosh was alarmed to discover the body of Mr. Edison facedown in the drawing room, the victim of an apparent struggle that left his rooms in hideous disarray.

  Despite the fact that there were no witnesses to the crime, and neither guests nor staff of the Stanford-White Hotel report any disturbance, officials of Scotland Yard state that a suspect had been taken into custody.

  In a statement to the press, officials declined to name the suspect, citing sensitive relations with certain continental powers. However, they did maintain their belief that the gruesome crime was the result of a long professional rivalry and a patent dispute.

  Mr. Edison was in London for the First International Conference of Electrical Engineers where he delivered the keynote address last evening. He was thirty-eight years old and is survived by three children: Marion Estelle Edison; Thomas Alva Edison, Jr.; and William Leslie Edison.

  I was thoroughly baffled by Helms’ excitement, and upon reaching the Stanford-White Hotel and leaving the rattle and clangor of our cab, I informed him as much.

  “My good doctor, I assure you that my brother was quite justified in directing our attention to this murder.” A smile crossed my friend’s face. “Unraveling this intrigue should provide us a stimulating welcome back to London.”

  Helms swept us into the hotel and through the lobby as if he was on the trail of the devil himself. We were only half a day removed from Mrs. Macintosh’s gruesome discovery and there were still several policemen about. When we reached the door of Edison’s room, Helms was stopped by the officer in the hall, “Sir, this is a police investigation.”

  “I am here on the Crown’s authority; Helms and Wilson on behalf of the Secret Service.”

  The officer was mollified, obviously having received word of the Secret Service’s interest before our arrival.

  I was personally amused at the officer’s sudden deference. Helms had a habit of projecting an imposing aura of authority that I suspect most observers would attribute to his position in the service of the Crown.

  Knowing my friend these many years, I can say that his self-possession, even his arrogance, were innate to his character. Despite his position, he had no respect to the forms of authority. It was only a combination of his brother’s personal influence, and the growing international threats to the Empire, that persuaded Helms to endure his service to the government.

  I knew Helms would much prefer the role of a private citizen, where he could fully control the problems that commanded his attention. But even had the tenor of the times been different, and he had never been called to service, I strongly suspect he would have endeavored to manufacture an excuse to personally investigate the more bizarre events that transpired in London; and judging by his current animated movements, Edison’s death would be counted among those events toward which he would have chosen to direct his interest.

  And had he done so, he would have projected the same aura of authority and commanded the same deference and respect he did now.

  The officer allowed us in the hotel room, answering Helms’ questions about who had been in the room before us, and what evidence had been taken from the scene. According to the officer, the scene had been largely undisturbed since Mrs. Macintosh’s gruesome discovery and the police—more specifically, the Special Branch, which was the division of Scotland Yard that dealt with police matters with international implications—had removed only the body and the murder weapon from the scene.

  Even without a corpse, violence seemed to permeate the very air here. The room was awash in sunlight from a set of French windows. Ornate gilt mouldings, rich fabrics, and a large Persian carpet marked this as one of the most luxurious suites of this hotel.

  The setting only served to make the chaos wrought within it all the worse.

  Marring the carpet was a massive bloodstain that served as the eye of a storm of upended drawers, torn fabric, broken furniture, and hundreds of sheets of white paper that reflected the golden sunlight from the French doors.

  Helms paused by the doorframe examining a single bullet hole that pierced the edge of the wood. He asked the officer, “How many wounds did Mr. Edison suffer?”

  “Two, Mr. Helms, one shot to the neck, the other to the head.” The officer tapped the rear part of his own skull.

  Helms nodded. “He was found facedown, I presume?” He changed his attention from the door frame to the massive stain marring the carpet.

  “Yes.”

  Helms knelt down to closely examine the darkest part of the bloodstain. I could see fragments of flesh and hair around a hole in the carpet and grimaced. Edison was clearly provided a coup de grace where he had fallen. The brutality of the crime was sickening.

  Helms proceeded to the walls of the room, rapping them with his fist and placing his ear against them. He stepped over the scattered papers, and stopped to examine several of the pages in place.

  He stood for a few moments, and then he strode past me and the officer, slapping me on the back. “It is time to see our alleged murderer.”

  Inspector Lestrade of the Special Branch met us in a private room at Scotland Yard. “Mr. Helms, Doctor Wilson.” He shook our hands and smiled. “Something about this case made me think I’d see you two come round. Not to disappoint you, but this is not one of your intricate enigmas, a veritable dearth of intrigue and mystery. Only a mundane case of murder, despite the character of the players.”

  Helms nodded. “I am afraid, Inspector Lestrade, that there may be more to this than a simple confession.”

  “A confession?” I remarked.

  Lestrade’s expression of surprise was matched by my own. “We haven’t announced this to the press, but yes, we have a confession. How did you—”

  “And I believe your suspect is a Mr. Nikola Tesla, with whom I would like to speak.”

  Lestrade was speechless for a moment, but I could see in his eyes the realization that Helms had indeed seen something in the case that he did not. “Well, Mr. Helms,” he said, “I quite respect your opinion in matters like these and I will say I am rarely sorry when I’ve allowed you to review the evidence in a case. I’ll arrange an interview for you. Would you please wait here?”

  When Lestrade left, I could contain myself no longer. “Now you must tell me how it is you knew not only who they have in custody, but the fact that they have already obtained a confession.”

  “Wilson, it is obvious from the news account that they have obtained a confession.”

  “How is that, when not a word was printed about one?”

  “The morning Gazette is printed at seven-thirty at the latest, and stories must be final a half hour before printing. In order for the police to release a statement to the press in time to see print, the arrest must have been nearly simultaneous with the discovery of the body. There was no time to examine evidence at the scene before the arrest, and the police statement claimed no witnesses. If we assume the story was accurate, we are left with two possibilities. One, the culprit was discovered in the very act, which contradicts the story we have. Or, the remaining option, our man confessed to the crime.”

  “As usual, I am impressed with the inevitability of your conclusions. But how is it you know who confessed?”

  “We have the two facts; first, the accused is significant to the Empire’s relationship with some unnamed continental powers; second, the supposed motive, professional rivalry and patent disputes. Just one of these facts would narrow the possible suspects to a handful; the two together narrow the field to one significant individual.”

  “Mr. Tesla? The name is somewhat familiar.”

  “In the English-speaking world, Edison is much the better known. But as I told you, I know Edison to have had only one equal, a man who has had a very public professional rivalry with him, who would de
finitely be in attendance at this conference of electrical engineers, and a man whose arrest would certainly cause Great Britain to have diplomatic difficulty with the Central European powers. And that is Mr. Nikola Tesla.”

  Helms took the time to relate the history of Mr. Nikola Tesla. He was well versed in Mr. Tesla’s achievements, which he related to me as we awaited our interview with the accused murderer.

  In many ways, Mr. Tesla was Edison’s European counterpart. His contributions ranged from stringing the central European capitals with electric lights to the invention of a wireless telegraph that could control machinery at a distance.

  In both cases, these men found patrons in their governments. Since the quick suppression of its Civil War, the United States had been a powerful international rival to Europe. The Americans had defeated the French in Mexico after Napoleon III’s ill-advised involvement in the Confederacy, and followed up with victory against the Spanish in the Caribbean. The tension between the New World and the Old had driven investments in industry and invention on both sides of the Atlantic. Tesla and Edison, on opposite sides of that rivalry, received more than their share of public largesse.

  And, like the nations that claimed their loyalty, the relationship between the two men was not a friendly one. Despite never having met, Edison had given the Serbian inventor much reason to hate him. Edison had filed patents in the United States that duplicated many Tesla had filed in Europe. Edison was brazenly developing his own versions of Tesla’s alternating current generators and designs. Edison used the same ideas to electrify American cities that Tesla used in Europe. The fortune this cost Tesla must have been incalculable.

  “I thought you admired Edison. You called his death tragic.”

  “I mourn for the knowledge his loss will cost humanity.” Helms said. “But I shall admit that intellectual genius does not guarantee moral character.”