“Presented merely as a matter of speculation at this point,” Holmes said quickly. “Its certainty would depend upon the veracity of the tale related by Maddoc to his dinner guests than evening.”
“A joke of some kind?”
“One look into Maddoc’s eyes belies that thought.”
“A lie?” suggested Kent.
“At least not the whole truth,” Holmes replied. “There are inconsistencies in the story related by Wells. If he accurately recorded the tale as told by Maddoc, then the inconsistencies are Maddoc’s, perhaps introduced by design, though it is more likely they stem from Maddoc’s lack or preparedness, a tale concocted upon the spur of the moment, containing elements of experience, yet at the same time with key elements withheld or changed, for reasons unknown. I have no doubt the story told us this night by H.G. Wells will bear only a passing resemblance to the novel he will ultimately publish, that he will smooth over all the rough spots and bend its narrative to support whatever philosophy he cherishes.” Holmes allowed himself a slight smile and said: “Believe me, Inspector Kent, I, of all people, know what liberties writers take with the truth.”
They approached the doorway and knocked. Their summons was eventually answered by a small grey-haired lady pulling a dressing gown tight before her and holding out a candle in a trembling hand.
“What do you want at this ungodly hour?” she demanded.
“This is the home of Moesen Maddoc?” Kent asked.
“It is and I am Mrs Watchett, the housekeeper.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Who is asking?”
“Inspector Kent of Scotland Yard.” He showed her his identification.
“And you?”
“My name is Sherlock Holmes.”
She eyed him even more suspiciously. “I guess you’re not dead after all, but you don’t look much like the drawings published in the Strand.”
“Is Mr Maddoc at home?” Kent asked.
The old housekeeper shook her head and uttered a sigh of exasperation. “I kanna keep track of his comings and goings. I think he is here, and he is gone; I think he is gone and he appears out of nowhere. With him acting so oddly since the night of the dinner party when he was set upon by coves, and so many peculiar events in the area, I feel I’m almost at wit’s end.”
“May we come in, Mrs Watchett?” Kent asked. “We’ve come all the way down from London.”
She looked doubtful.
“I assure you it will be all right,” Holmes told her. “You have my word.”
After a moment, she eased the door open far enough for the two men to slip within, after which she quickly shut it, turned the key in the lock and threw bolts top and bottom.
“I don’t know where he is,” she snapped. “He may be here or no.”
“We’ll be fine,” Kent replied. “We will await Mr Maddoc’s arrival.”
She shook her head in exasperation. “Suit yourself. I am going back to bed.”
“Mrs Watchett,” said Holmes, “you related that Mr Maddoc had been attacked by coves just before attending a dinner party he gave recently.”
“That is not exactly what I said,” she corrected, “but it is what happened.”
“You heard the story related by Mr Maddoc to his guests?”
“Aye,” she replied, “and gulling good it was too.”
“One more thing, Mrs Watchett,” Holmes said as she started to turn away. “When Mr Maddoc joined his guests, after being attacked by thieves, did he come through one of the outside doors?”
“No, sir,” she replied. “He came through the door leading to his laboratory. But it has an outside door of its own.”
“Thank you, Mrs Watchett.”
“Good night, gentlemen,” she said. “Watch your manners and stay out of mischief.”
Kent waited till she was out of the room and mounting the stairs, then whispered to Holmes: “A tough old bird, that one.”
“Old,” said Mrs Watchett evenly from the top of the stairs, “but still of very good hearing.”
“I beg your pardon, madam,” Kent blurted, red-faced, but she had already vanished into her room.
“We must look around,” Holmes said, ignoring his companion’s sudden discomfiture. “If there are any clues to Maddoc’s whereabouts or answers to what is happening in London, they will be found here.”
“We don’t have that right,” Kent asserted. “Where is our warrant to search? As far as we know, Moesen Maddoc has committed no crime, is not even suspected of one.”
“You are an agent of the official police and are bound by certain arbitrary restrictions,” Holmes pointed out. “I am guided by a higher code, compelled by the bounds of my conscience. You know as well as I do, Moesen Maddoc is at the heart of the mystery we seek to unravel; I do not know about you, Inspector, but I will not let William Dunning perish simply because of a scrap of paper.”
“Well, we’ve come this far,” Kent sighed after a moment. “In for a penny, in for a pound. Besides, my presence on the Dunning case could hardly be called official.”
They made a quiet search of the ground floor rooms, finding nothing, eventually working their way toward the glass-bound laboratory. They passed through the shadowy dining room and entered a long panelled corridor vaguely lit by light seeping from under a far door. They opened the door and stepped into the voluminous room beyond.
“Good God, Holmes!” Kent exclaimed.
“There might be an element of truth to Wells’ tale after all,” Holmes remarked dryly.
Chapter IX
A Machine of Exquisite and Curious Design
In the centre of the vast workroom, glittering beneath the guttering flame of a single low-burning gaslamp, was such a device as neither man had ever before beheld. It was composed of a dizzying array of burnished brass, cut crystal, glittering jewels and a complexity of wheels within wheels to rival Ezekiel’s vision.
“Mr Holmes, could it possibly be?” Kent breathed.
“A vehicle most certainly,” Sherlock Holmes announced. “Note the padded leather seat in the midst of the machine above the tripod arrangement, and what appears to be a control panel of some sort, though oddly incomplete. The tripod contrivance of the undercarriage is mounted upon short skis, and those aligned holes indicate that Maddoc either had axles and wheels, or allowed for the possibility ”
“But a…a Time Machine?”
“Its source of power is obscure,” Holmes remarked, walking around the mechanism.
“Neither steam nor electricity,” Kent decided.
“No boiler,” Holmes agreed. “Nor the rows of galvanic piles one would expect if it…” He paused. “I wonder…”
“What, Holmes?”
“Perhaps an application of magnetics,” Holmes suggested.
Inspector Kent looked doubtful. “I hardly think this thing could be powered by a lodestone.”
“I do not know,” Holmes admitted. “My knowledge of science, except for the more practical aspects of chemistry, geology and botany, is quite limited. I suggest magnetism only because none of the more familiar sources of motive power seem to satisfy the limitations delineated by the form of the device before us. I do know, however, that a group of German engineers in Stuttgart recently constructed an elevated monorail train, the motive power of which is derived from non-ferrous electromagnets activated in series. No doubt those German scientists are attempting to remake the world, for good or for ill, and the world should probably watch German scientists in general lest they lead us into darkness.”
“This cannot possibly be Maddoc’s Time Machine,” Kent asserted. “It cannot exist, no more than can the Morlocks or Eloi.”
“To question the improbable is the beginning of knowledge,” Holmes replied. “But to deny the obvious is to wrap oneself in a cloak of ignorance.”
“You believe that Moesen Maddoc has actually invented a machine for going forward and backward in time?” Kent demanded. “You are claiming that this device is that Time Machine?
”
Holmes dropped to one knee, pulled out a glass from his inside cloak pocket and examined the under portion of the machine. “Inspector, I would draw your attention to the encrustations upon the sled skis and the lower portion of the struts.”
Inspector Kent kneeled beside the consulting detective and took the offered lens. “Dried mud, grass…let’s see…two crushed flowers, pollen or seed pods of some kind, and some object…oh, a crushed bug of some sort. Well, at the very least it does seem that it has been outside the confines of this room, and, look, there are scrapings upon the flagstone, where it has been dragged…from the direction of that wall.”
“Bravo, Inspector, but I fear that although you see, you do not observe.”
Kent passed the glass back to Holmes.
“Many a murderer has gone to the gallows protesting he was nowhere near the scene of a crime when the dirt on his boots testified to the contrary,” Holmes explained. “The soil here is of two types, one contemporaneous with the current geology of Richmond, the other closely related, but not the same; the similarities and difference in the soil is suggestive of a geologic shift, but not conclusive. However, the botanical specimens you noted are unknown species of grass, flower and pollen. Also, they are quite unsuited to England’s present climate, being native to a much warmer, almost tropical clime, and certainly that insect is of a species unknown to modern science, thought obviously descended from a modern beetle, evolved as it were.”
Kent snorted in disbelief.
“That proves nothing,” Kent asserted. “The evidence you cite could have been easily concocted by Maddoc – samples taken from geological or botanical displays – to produce just such an effect, and to lead even the likes of you, Mr Holmes, to an erroneous conclusion.”
“Perhaps,” Holmes admitted. “It would hardly be the first time someone has tried to fabricate evidence, but to what purpose here?”
“To make people believe he really had created a Time Machine, maybe to obtain financial backing, or just as a lark upon his friends,” Kent said. “You heard what Mrs Watchett thought of the tale, and I’d wager that old Scot bird has more common sense than a dozen hard-headed bankers from Threadneedle Street. Perhaps Maddoc’s intention in making this device, for telling the story, even dirtying himself up, was just to gull his dinner companions, for motives as enigmatic as those as any lunatic who ever walked Bethlehem’s halls in Lambeth Road.”
Holmes, who had not stopped looking over the machine, suddenly dropped again to his knee, examined a recess behind a rear strut, and uttered an exclamation of discovery. He pulled out what was wedged there and showed it to Kent on his open palm.
“I would give more than passing credence to your estimation, Inspector, were it not for this,” he said.
“Another crushed bug?”
“No, not this time,” Holmes said after a moment. “It is not a bug at all, but a trilobite, a now-extinct form of marine arthropod which throve only in the warm shallow seas of the primeval world. And, please note, it is not a fossil remnant but…”
“Fossils are humbug!”
“Not a fossil, such as you might now find on display, but an actual creature not more than a month dead.”
“Just because godless scientists believe…”
“Quiet!” Holmes cautioned. “Someone approaches.”
“It might be Maddoc,” Kent whispered.
“Or it might not,” Holmes replied. “We should conceal ourselves. You are still armed, Inspector?”
Kent nodded and gently patted his jacket pocket.
Maddoc’s laboratory was cluttered to the point where a regiment could have nicely concealed itself. Holmes and Kent had no trouble finding hiding places from where they could easily observe both the machine, whatever its true nature, and the door to the corridor by which they had gained access to the laboratory, the source of the approaching stealthy footfalls.
The door creaked open and they saw the man they had encountered at the Neptune Tavern seemingly a lifetime ago, the man they now knew to be Moesen Maddoc. In his hand was a revolver. He looked about the room, as if expecting danger to leap from the shadows. When no menace appeared, he pocketed the weapon and strode to his machine.
Without preamble of movement, he seated himself upon the padded leather chair, quickly reattached a number of levers, and pushed them forward.
“Maddoc!” Holmes yelled, leaping into view, Kent coming directly after him.
The man in the midst of the machine turned toward them, a started expression upon his face. They had no more than a moment to contemplate each other before both the machine and its rider vanished in a swirl of wind.
“Well, I’ll be dished,” Kent murmured, vulgarly.
Only a few seconds after machine and occupant had vanished, however, they reappeared. Maddoc slipped from the leather seat, and would have crashed to the floor had not Kent caught him.
“Good God!” Kent breathed, gazing into Maddoc’s face.
Chapter X
The Time Traveller
In the few seconds which had elapsed since Moesen Maddoc had vanished from their vision he had changed greatly. The hair at his temples had greyed noticeably, and his body evidenced several wounds, both new and healed, which he had not possessed prior to his disappearance. His clothes were covered with dust and torn in a few places where previously they had been whole.
“Carry him into the sitting room,” Holmes instructed. “He needs a brandy.”
“As do I,” Kent gulped, gathering the man into his arms and following Holmes out of the laboratory.
They laid the injured, exhausted man out on a chesterfield. While Holmes administered brandy to Maddoc, Kent administered two whiskeys to himself in quick succession. The Welsh inventor sputtered as the fiery liquid coursed its way down his throat. He opened his eyes and gazed at Holmes and Kent uncomprehendingly.
“You…both of you…you were at the Neptune…”
“Holmes, how could he know that when you were then disguised as a lascar?” Kent demanded, still searching for trickery of any kind.
“The ears,” Maddoc explained weakly. “Even in the best of disguises, the ears are usually left alone.”
“Exceptionally observant,” Holmes murmured.
“And in my laboratory,” Maddoc continued. “Before…”
“That’s right,” Holmes said.
“So long ago…”
“How long?” Holmes asked. “Months?”
“I had to get back to…” He paused and gazed at Holmes with widening eyes. “Then you know…”
“About your infernal machine? Yes!” snapped Kent. “I still do not understand it, but I can no longer deny it.”
“And we know about the Morlocks as well,” Holmes said. “The Morlocks in London came from here did they not?”
“That’s right, from here, but not here and now.” He forced himself to sit up and to take another brandy from Holmes. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I am Inspector Charles Kent of Scotland Yard.”
“Sherlock Holmes.”
“As to explanations, young man,” Kent said, “you owe them to us, not us to you.”
“I expect you were seeking the same as I was when you were at the Neptune,” Maddoc said. “The source of the East End Ghosts and the Vanishments.”
“They have the same source,” Holmes suggested. “The colony of Morlocks now dwelling in London’s sewers.”
“We were looking for William Dunning,” Kent clarified. “And, as far as I am concerned, we still are.”
“How did you get from the Neptune to here?” Maddoc asked.
With an economy of words, Holmes told Maddoc something of the trail that had led them across London to Richmond. By then, Maddoc had finished his third brandy, and the colour was beginning to return to his pallid cheeks; his hands still trembled, but ever so slightly.
“Wells,” Maddoc mused. “I forgave him for writing ‘The Chronic Argonauts,’ and s
hould humanity survive, I suppose I shall forgive him ‘The Time Machine’ as well.”
“What do you mean?” Kent demanded.
“Maddoc has seen the future of man,” Holmes said, “and has found a future without man.”
“You mean that preposterous fable of Morlocks and Eloi?”
“Nothing so distant as that,” Holmes replied. “You have seen a time much closer to our own, have you not, Mr Maddoc, and very much darker than that which you related to Mr Wells and your other dinner guests.”
“You are unfortunately correct, Mr Holmes.”
“The dinner party story was a lie?”
“Not all of it,” Maddoc countered, “but a goodly portion.”
“What, then, is the truth?”
“If Wells kept an accurate shorthand of the tale I told, and I am sure he did, as he always does,” Maddoc began, “then you know something of my first journey into the future.”
“First?” Kent blurted.
“Inspector, please,” Holmes cautioned.
“I told my guests of sheepish Eloi burdened under the yoke of the cannibalistic Morlocks,” Maddoc continued. “Actually, the far future is not so dominated by the Morlocks as I gave them to believe. The Eloi fight back, and savagely, at times pursuing the Morlocks into their underground warrens, where they attempt to destroy their great machines. The world of Anno Domini 802701 is one of endless warfare and bloodshed.
“After attaining that century, I was taken prisoner by the Eloi, who found me so odd in appearance they were convinced I was somehow leagued with the Morlocks. If not for the help of an extraordinary girl named Weena, I would be a captive still. She helped me at the cost of her own freedom. When I escaped, I discovered the Morlocks had taken the Time Machine inside one of their Winged Sphinxes, the image of the repellent god that earns their worship. When I again found my machine, I saw it had been examined by Morlock mechanics, had even been cleaned and maintained by them, a decadent form of religious devotion to the machine, I supposed. Though I was discovered in the darkness and attacked, I fought them off, striking out at anything that came near me, and I escaped into the past, our present, and moved my machine back into the laboratory from the garden, which is the future site of the Winged Sphinx.”
Sherlock Holmes: The Coils of Time & Other Stories (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 1) Page 7
