by Pavel Kornev
So they let us go, taking yet another non-disclosure agreement on our way out the door.
No matter! I wasn't planning on sharing the details with newspapermen in any case. It wasn’t the right time for that...
BY VIRTUE OF THE EARLY HOUR, Archimedes' Screw was half empty, but we still got seats in the farthest corner.
"We made a real mess of things, didn't we?" Ramon sighed. After that, the barkeep brought out a glass of white wine and a soda water for him, as well as a pitcher of lemonade for me, took a few small coins and left us in peace.
"You can say that again."
"I definitely would have been fired," the former constable drew out his words with a smirk, "if they hadn't managed to fire me already."
"See how well it turned out," I smiled, filling my glass with lemonade.
Ramon looked sourly in reply.
"Do you know what the pay is like for a night guard at the coalhouse?" He asked.
"Oh yeah, speaking of money!" I took the wad of colonial dollars from my right boot and started counting them, flexing the corners of the bank notes.
"What is that?!" Ramon was alarmed.
I threatened him with a finger, finished counting and split the pile into two equal ones. I extended one to my friend.
"What is that?" He repeated his question, not touching the money.
"Think of it as an advance. Eighty dollars," I answered, placing the now fairly thinned-out stack in the inner pocket of my jacket.
"With the exchange rate where it's at now, that's four hundred francs, right?" Ramon stared at me, still not having grown out of his policeman's habits. "Leo, did you really conceal eight hundred francs?"
"I didn't conceal it," I objected, adjusting my glasses, "I appropriated it for our investigation."
"Prove it."
"Does the werewolf know about the money? He does. Say his informer in the Newton-Markt gives him a description of the objects collected from his room, but sees that the one hundred sixty dollars is missing. He'll probably want to get it back. After that, he’ll come straight for us!"
"Then why'd you give half to me?"
"If I can't deal with him, I'll send him to you for the remainder. I believe in you, Ramon."
He was staring at a model of an Archimedes' Screw hanging directly over the table, and spent some time thinking over my words. Then he put the money in his pocket and demanded:
"And now, explain to me what gives us the right to spend this money on our own needs."
"It's quite simple," I laughed. "Do you want to give money to a criminal, even unwillingly? The more you manage to spend, the less goes back to the werewolf! Or are you counting on taking him down one-on-one?"
Ramon didn't place much faith in my hypothetical example, but still he frowned in annoyance:
"Bite your tongue!" Then he threw himself back in his chair and told me: "While they kept us waiting at the Newton-Markt, I managed to trade a few words with a constable I used to know; everyone involved was ordered in very strict terms to keep their mouths shut. They warned them that, if the story were to leak to the papers, the inspector general himself would lead the investigation to find the person responsible."
I squirmed. I certainly didn't want to attract the attention of that ghoulish old man.
But I didn't mention it. I poured out the rest of the lemonade into my glass and said:
"You should have stuck him with the electricity right away!"
"You're right. Who's arguing? Now you won't even be able to get close to him with a stun baton. A trick like that can only work once," Ramon noted reasonably, getting up from the table. "Forget about the werewolf. Let Department Three track him down."
"Where are you going?"
"To sleep! Tonight, I'll have to be ready for my new job." He bowed to me and advised: "Leo, work on the bank robbery. If you need help, get in touch. But don't say another word about the werewolf. I'm not suicidal."
And he took a step toward the exit.
I shrugged my shoulders and left right after him.
The weather was spoiled. The former gray film stretched out over the sky had turned into shaggy clouds, dark and hostile. A wind had picked up also. The abrupt bursts were shaking the trees and howling in chimneys. Wisps of smoke would puff up out of them and be dispersed in an instant.
I stood there for a bit, gathering my thoughts, then I caught a cabby and told him to take me to Leonardo da Vinci-Platz. From there, I started walking in the direction of the shop Mechanisms and Rarities, preparing in advance for an unpleasant conversation with the inventor, but Alexander Dyak, to my great surprise, was not angry I’d broken the cane. He simply waved his hand:
"What else could I possibly have been expecting? I was young once, too, you know! Breaking and losing things at your age, Leopold Borisovich, is business as usual. Don't worry about it."
I became a very slight amount self-conscious, and gave him some money.
"Oh, come off it!" The shop owner waved me away and rubbed his thin beard. "It wasn't much of a loss for me. When you make everything yourself, you only have to pay for the parts."
I chuckled and continued counting out bank notes.
"I still do need a cane, though."
"Buy a normal one!" Alexander Dyak objected. "I'm not interested in money. I'm interested in scientific investigation!"
"I've conducted more than enough experiments, no doubt about it," I noted calmly and set the twenty dollars on the counter. "And I can say with complete confidence that the discharge of your electric jar was not strong enough to fully paralyze a werewolf, but it was enough to disorient him and make his limbs twitch. The weak point in its construction was the point where the shocks were attached, but that only became a problem when I used it improperly. Until... uhhh... the break, I managed to walk twenty kilometers with everything working like a Swiss timepiece."
The inventor shook his head, but did eventually accept my money. After stuffing it in his robe pocket, he came out from behind the counter and locked the entrance to his shop.
"Leopold Borisovich, please come with me," he called, heading into the back room.
I went after him and gave an admiring whistle, looking at his workshop, which was outfitted with all the most recent technology. One wall was lined with machine tools and workbenches, while the other was taken up by a drawing of a Pullman train car and a huge blackboard covered with chalk splotches. There were boxes towering everywhere I looked. In the corner, I came upon a generator and the chemistry vessel cabinet. On the desk, beyond a microscope and chemistry set, there stood two huge gas burners.
Alexander Dyak pointed at the wooden stool, dabbed his iron quill into the inkwell and leaned over the thick amber book.
"Start from the very beginning," he demanded. "Make a special note of symptoms of the shock and the times they were noted."
I set about unbuttoning my pea-coat and asked him:
"Are you interested in the effect of electricity on otherworldly beings?"
The inventor looked strictly at me, but softened up and lowered himself to explain:
"In the list of my many interests, that is one, yes. It should be said that I am not sure if werewolves technically belong to the category of otherworldly beings, though."
"Victims of a hereditary disorder?" I chuckled and, with relief, took a seat on the stool.
"That is a fact confirmed by science," the store owner nodded importantly. "And now, Leopold Borisovich, I beg you to gather your thoughts. Every detail is important."
I gave forth a fateful sigh. Another interrogation! I then set about describing how the werewolf reacted to the electric shock, his convulsions, loss of orientation, and delayed reaction time.
Alexander Dyak bowed his ear down to me, asking me to explain from time to time, how long a certain phase had lasted, every time causing certain complications. The struggle had settled in my memory in torn-up fragments. And it lasted no longer than a few minutes from beginning to end anyway.
"That would be nice. If it isn't too much trouble."
The store owner nodded thoughtfully and suddenly suggested:
"For ease of use, I could equip it with two removable electrode spikes. It won't take much time."
All I could do was laugh.
"I do not think I'll be going out for another hand-to-hand fight with that beast any time soon."
Now it was the inventor’s turn to laugh.
"Trust my experience, Leopold Borisovich. Life is unpredictable! If I'd have known that I’d be leaving technical school..." with those words he cut himself off and waved his arm in annoyance. Then he uncovered one of the boxes and got out a cane, which looked somewhat more plain than the first. "You'll have to wait a bit."
"As you say," I relented in that it wouldn't have been too smart to be stubborn right now. If a person wants to help you, you shouldn't give them a slap on the wrist, right?
Alexander Dyak squeezed the cane in a vice, deftly removed its rubber cap and undid some screws with an adjustable wrench.
"I expect a more detailed report from you next time," he warned. "I hope this ingenious improvement will turn out useful..."
"What really would have been useful is silver bullets that hit their target," I sighed. "My comrade was shooting practically from point-blank, and missed four times. I've never seen anyone move so fast before."
"He didn't hit even once?" the inventor asked, continuing to work on the cane.
"Not with the silver bullets, no. He filled the beast with around twenty regular ones, but the wounds healed themselves over."
Alexander Dyak wiped the sweat from his forehead and told me:
"I suppose it's to do with his instinctive reflexes."
"What, excuse me?" I didn't understand.
"Are you familiar with the work of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov? He spent quite some time on this topic."
"The Nobel laureate?" I remembered the vaguely familiar name and admitted: "To my great shame, I cannot claim to have read much on him."
"Alright, then I'll try to explain." The inventor removed the generator and electric jar from the cane and set about digging in his cabinets in search of a part. "The body possesses its own memory and set of reactions to external stimulus. As your hand would unconsciously move away from a fire, so did the werewolf move away from the silver: reflexively. These creatures are already much faster than a person, but in such cases they can react without even the slightest delay. This is not just my theory, either. Mr. Pavlov has proved it in practice."
"Did he perform experiments on werebeasts?"
"In Russia, they have a much simpler view of such things," Alexander Dyak confirmed. "And also, it doesn't matter how the silver is delivered. Some kind of supernatural or, if you will, intuitive sense kicks in. The werebeast simply knows, and its body reacts on its own."
"Nonsense!" I dismissed. "Werebeasts are not such a rarity. From time to time, they do get shot. And with silver bullets, at that."
"Unfortunately, their disease is not only transmitted genetically. People who are exposed to it often find themselves infected as adults."
"And?"
"The instinctive reflexes are only passed down genetically," Alexander Dyak told me. "The people you're talking about, if I can put it this way, lesser werebeasts, do not have them."
The store owner attached the generator to a steel plate. To it, he screwed an electric jar and started messing around with the metal cables.
"I am quite curious to know, Leopold Borisovich," he smiled, "how the electric shock affected its reflexes."
"Is there no other scientific way to injure a werebeast at a distance?" I wondered.
"I'm afraid that I cannot help you with that," the inventor shook his head. "Poisons don't work on werebeasts. Aluminum doesn't do any particular harm. Their bodies just heal over. Any wounds from metal, wood, stone or bone are covered within a few seconds."
"One second!" I furrowed my brow. "It didn't even expel the bullets back out! I had the impression that the bullets were simply dissolving in its body!"
"Dissolving?" Alexander Dyak grew surprised. "The metabolism of this creature is simply unbelievable!" He jumped to his feet and set about pacing from one corner to another, thinking something over in agitation. "But in that case... if it disperses throughout the body in a moment... x-rays..." he muttered to himself. "Radon... ulcers... Curie..."
I sat in silence, afraid to distract the inventor. He returned to his workbench, began putting the cane together again and warned me:
"Don't distract me, I'm thinking. Read a newspaper for now."
I had little interest in newspapers, and even less interest in those that were more than a week old, but I did not want to contradict the store owner. I took an armful of old issues and leafed through them, marveling at the strange selection. On top, there was an issue of The Atlantic Telegraph with the loud headline "Engineer Disappears Without a Trace," after that came some issues of the Stock-Market Bulletin, one with a quote circled in red pencil for a company that had some kind of connection with coal mining.
"Surprising!" Alexander Dyak laughed uncontrollably. "Science can perform real miracles, you know. For some reason, though, we always seem to be pounding in nails with a microscope. Leopold Borisovich, you do know what a microscope is, right? Right now, we are using a microscope to pound in average, every-day nails." The shop owner got into a bad frame of mind. In his voice, I could hear unhidden bitterness.
"If my request is not accepted..." I was the one to start speaking, but the inventor just waved his hand.
"Drop it!" he sighed. "This isn't your problem, and not even mine. We've just all been put in such a position that we have to spend all our energy on totally useless projects. Science is standing in place, and, no matter how shameful it is to admit it, certain people are perfectly fine with that. What's more, they apply significant force to keep it that way for the foreseeable future."
"I'm afraid I don't totally understand you," I muttered in confusion, tossing the papers aside.
"Rudolf Diesel. Does that name ring any bells?" Alexander Dyak then asked.
"An engineer and inventor," I remembered the recent article. "He disappeared from a steamer cabin on its way from Lisbon to New Babylon. The police suspect suicide. But I couldn't figure out what exactly he was intending to reveal to the court of public opinion."
"There wasn't a word in the papers about his inventions," the store owner assured me. "But now, these paper-pushers are actually trying to present him as a charlatan."
"But you don't agree with that?"
"Diesel was trying to make an engine that could work with liquid fuel. For example, kerosene," the inventor told me, screwing off the handle and replacing it with a rubber-coated one. "There won't be a torch this time," he warned.
"Doesn't matter. So, what did you say about the new engine?"
A kerosene-powered engine? It sounded unusual.
"It was a real alternative to steam power. But first, Diesel's ideas were rejected in Petrograd, then hack writers ridiculed him in Paris, and now he has simply disappeared together with all his inventions. Very convenient, don't you think?"
"You suspect murder?" I clarified, not knowing how to think about the shop owner's discoveries.
"I am not a detective, nor a criminal reporter, so I won't judge," Alexander Dyak shrugged his shoulders and leaned on the cane. "I only know that his engine would have seriously reduced coal consumption in the distant future. People have been killed for less."
I nodded.
In the New World, the production of self-propelled carriages using compact steam engines was in full swing. No one there was even thinking about liquid fuel, considering that Nobel's powder engines had not become widely popular due to their low reliability and the limits on the sale of granulated TNT, which i
t used as fuel.
"And still..." I muttered thoughtfully, "you can't stop progress. Laziness and greed are indefatigable. I am sure that Mr. Diesel's inventions will come out in some way or another soon."
The inventor walked around the room and extended me the cane.
"I doubt it," he shook his head, wiping off his grease-caked palms. "You, Leopold Borisovich, have no idea how far greed can take a person. Diesel is not the first by any means. Lenoir and Otto also managed to publish their works, but as soon as Kostovich suggested changing to kerosene, his workshop burned down. He was the first victim, I suppose."
"But not the only one?"
"The deaths of Daimler and Maybach always seemed suspicious to me, as well. Diesel kept his inventions a secret for a long time, but..." The inventor waved his hand, vexed, and changed the topic: "What are we doing talking and talking on the same topic? How do you like the cane?"
"It's no worse than the first one," I decided after a few steps, but when we came out into the main part of the store, I asked: "Anyway, why do you think Diesel's works aren't simply going to be published under someone else's name? Is it somehow connected with the rise in coal company stocks?"
Alexander Dyak laughed.
"You are a very quick-witted young man," he stated, standing behind the counter. "Would you like to know why? I'll tell you. It's all about business. When, after the Franco-Prussian conflict, Alsace-Lorraine and the Ruhr came under direct control of the Emperor, many courtiers lined their own pockets quite handsomely. Because the Ruhr is coal, and coal is money. And if there's not enough money, you can take a loan on your future income and spend it, for example on the Donets coal basin. Then, keep taking loans and start buying up coal basins in Siberia. You could make a manufacturing empire, and you'd still have decades to pay off the loans. What is the value of human life on the backdrop of that?"
"Not much?" I squinted.
"Absolutely nothing!" The shop owner laughed and took the cane from me. "First, you need to turn the latch," he cracked the thicker lower third, "then you just flex it."
