The Steampunk Detective

by Darrell Pitt

“So you’re working with M?” he said.

  Lucy burst out laughing. The mocking sound rang through the chamber, echoing and reverberating through the tunnels until it sounded as if a hundred women were laughing in support of her. Finally she bent close to Jack, drew back her hand and slapped him hard across the face.

  “You silly little boy,” she said.

  She turned her back to him. “Tell your masters they have signed Lucy Harker’s death warrant,” she rasped. “Today she will die and at midnight tomorrow so will London.”

  She turned back to Jack and winked.

  Jack would have fallen off the chair if he were not handcuffed to it.

  “You’re M,” he said.

  “There is no M,” Lucy said. “He is only a shadow. Only a delusion.”

  “Why?” Jack asked.

  “Because women are not respected!” she spat in fury. “Men think us weak and small. Creatures to be coddled and cherished. I needed a mask, a legend that would strike terror into the hearts of any who stood against me.

  “I needed M,” Lucy said. “And he needed me. So I invented him.”

  “But you’ve done such evil things,” Jack said. “And the bomb. Don’t you care that thousands of people are going to be killed?”

  “You’re a child, Jack. Those people are going to die anyway. It might be today or tomorrow or fifty years from now, but one day they will be dust.”

  “So will you,” Jack said bitterly.

  “But until then I will be rich and powerful. Men will tremble at my feet. Civilisations will fall to their knees at my command –.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Jack said. “You might destroy London, but then –.”

  “London is only the beginning,” Lucy said through clenched teeth. “Then I will drive other cities to their knees. You saw them, didn’t you Jack? I have four other bombs and I have divided the uranium – their power source – between all five weapons.

  “Certainly, the London blast will be smaller than expected, but the destruction of the inner city will be enough to make other countries bow before me. I will extort money and valuables from all the great cities – Paris, Rome, New York. They will pay me or they will burn.”

  She bent over low so that her face hovered only inches away from Jack’s features. “And there’s nothing anyone can do to stop me.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  The voice emanated from the other side of the chamber. A deep and confident voice, it reduced Lucy’s face to absolute surprise.

  Ignatius Doyle stepped from one of the alcoves. He held a gun in his hand.

  “This entire area is surrounded, Lucy,” Mr Doyle said. “It’s over. You will go to jail for the rest of your life – which will probably not be very long. We still hang criminals here in London. You’re an evil woman, Lucy and I’m sure many will believe the world a better place without you.”

  “How –,” Lucy seemed to strangle on the word. “How did you –.”

  “You need not worry your little head about that,” Mr Doyle said. “Suffice to say that London will live to see another day.”

  “London will not,” Lucy said. Her mouth turned down at the corners. Suddenly from her sleeve sprang a revolver that snapped into her hand. She pulled the trigger. “And neither will you.”

  “No!” Jack cried.

  The bullet struck Mr Doyle in the chest, spinning him around and sending him flying. In the next instant, Lucy rounded Jack’s chair and gripped the back of it.

  “Time to meet your maker, child.”

  She angled it up onto its front legs and toppled it forward.

  Jack landed head first in the water. He jerked his body backwards and spun the chair around. For a brief moment his head floated above the surface.

  He saw Lucy looking down at him as dispassionately as a small child torturing an insect.

  “The bomb will never be found.” She gave him a wry smile. “It will be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  Despite Jack’s struggles, the chair dragged him down into the icy depths.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The freezing cold flow of the liquid was numbing. Time slowed to a crawl. Jack could not breathe. He had instinctively held his breath as he sank. He knew he only had a minute, maybe two at the most before his breath ran out and he drowned.

  But his concern was not for him.

  It was for Mr Doyle.

  Lucy Harker had shot him in the chest!

  Even now the detective probably lay dying on the cold, stone floor.

  He had to save Mr Doyle and the only way to do that was to remain calm. He had to think.

  Think!

  He pulled experimentally on the handcuffs. First he had to escape from the chair. The chair was constructed of wood. If he had an hour he might be able to break it apart with his body weight, but as he only had minutes to live, he had to go to Plan B.

  The lock–pick.

  Jack was able to reach his jacket and ease the device from his pocket. It slid out beneath him in the gloomy water. Lying face down on the bottom of the pool, he now saw the device lying to the left of his hand. He jerked the chair about slightly and his hand closed around it.

  Now it got difficult. He shifted the device about in his hand and tried to insert it into the key hole of the cuffs. The angle was all wrong. He braced it against the stonework at the bottom of the pool. Now he had to push down on the trigger.

  He could not reach it.

  A shot of breath burst from his nose and water trickled in.

  He had to stay calm, he told himself. Or he would die and so would Mr Doyle.

  If he wasn’t already.

  He reached with all his might and the tip of his middle finger grazed the trigger. Not enough. He slid his arm further down the handcuff and tried again. It pushed down on the trigger.

  Why wasn’t it working?

  He jerked his head back and saw the mechanism that should have been inserted into the lock had slipped out and was impotently trying to unlock the water. Jack adjusted the lock again to line up with the lock–pick. Another burst of air spat from his mouth. His head felt like it was ready to burst. A strange pressure pushed from behind his eyeballs.

  An image came into his mind.

  His mother at the top of the trapeze. Calling out to him.

  Try. Try harder.

  He shook his head and refocused on the lock–pick. He inserted the end into the lock again and this time reached down with all his might to touch the trigger.

  The handcuff loosened.

  The lock–pick had not worked completely, but it had opened the cuff far enough to allow Jack to slide his hand free. As he did so, another shot of water lurched into his nose and he could not resist the urge to cough. As he did so, water poured into his mouth.

  His vision blurred. Inky black spots bounced around in the gloomy gas lit water. He saw his mother again, but this time she appeared distant and he could not hear her words.

  I have to keep going, he thought. Mr Doyle needs me.

  His left hand clumsily tried to insert the device into the other handcuff, but his chest suddenly convulsed with the urge to take in oxygen. The device whirred impotently in the water.

  He had to keep trying.

  Don’t give up!

  The one clear thought cut through the gloom in his mind as he tried one last time to insert the lock–pick into the key hole. The handcuff suddenly snapped open. With his lungs about to explode and a sea of black dots dancing across his eyeballs, he placed his feet against the chair and pushed as hard as he could towards the surface of the water.

  Not far enough. Just two more feet. He tried to swim, but his arms had no strength. In vain, Jack lifted his hand up towards the meagre light.

  His energy was gone. The black dots joined together to form a dark, rolling sea. He could actually see the terrible pressure in his head. The force behind his eye balls, pressing down on his brain had turned into a steam powered press. Men sh
ovelled coal into the burner. Pipes heating. Boiling water. Producing steam.

  But instead of rolling clouds of white steam, he saw blackened pools of billowing vapour, surrounding him, carrying him away to some other place.

  An arm spat through the water as if from a million miles away and grasped his outstretched hand. It pulled so hard that his elbow shrieked with distant pain, but that was alright because now something cold danced across his face.

  Air.

  Someone slammed him face first onto the cold stonework and pushed down on his back and water spurted out of his nose and mouth. The sensation was quite unpleasant, really, because the calm inky night he had so comfortably swam in rudely drained away to nothing.

  He took a gasping breath. Choked. Vomited water.

  “There, there,” a voice said gently. “Breathe. Just breathe.”

  Jack continued to vomit as cold reality pressed in on him. Tunnels. Stonework. Oil lamps. The hands pushing down desperately on his back. Now the sensation to vomit lessened and Jack slowly eased over onto his side.

  He looked up into a face he knew only too well.

  “Mr Doyle?” He gripped the man’s arm. “Is it really you?”

  “It’s me,” he said. “Are you alright?”

  Before he could reply, he spat up another few mouthfuls of water. Finally he stood, gripping the older man’s arm for support. He suddenly looked at him.

  “But you were shot,” Jack said.

  “I was shot,” Ignatius Doyle agreed. “But it seems the angels looked upon me with kindness.

  “Or one angel, at least.”

  He reached under his shirt and pulled out his son’s dog tags. Neatly jammed into the centre of one of them lay a bullet. A sharp eyed marksman could not have planted it closer to dead centre on the piece of metal.

  “The bullet struck me and knocked me down. I hit my head and was knocked senseless for a moment. When I came too I realised you were in the water and came to your aid.” The great detective shook his head. “I should have told you my suspicions.”

  “About what?”

  “About Lucy.”

  Jack’s eyes widened. “You mean you thought she was involved in this?”

  “I even thought she was M.”

  “What?”

  “You may recall I noticed a bruise on her ankle,” Mr Doyle said. “When we were on the airship in Switzerland.”

  “I remember.”

  “I believe it resulted from you wrapping your belt about her ankle on the train to trip her up,” Mr Doyle explained. “And then there was the bloody handprint near the body of her father.”

  “I remember,” Jack said. “There was a strange mark across one of the fingers. I thought it was a scar.”

  “I believe it was caused by the puzzle ring on her right hand. A very pretty ring, really.” Mr Doyle looked glum. “I’m really very sorry, Jack. I have no right to place you in such danger.”

  Jack shook his head. What was it Scarlet said? “Everyone has to do their duty,” Jack said. “And if we had not done our duty then London would be doomed.”

  “Possibly it still is,” Mr Doyle said. “Quickly. We must find the exit.”

  They made their way through the labyrinth of tunnels. Of the two trucks, the one with the four bombs was still parked, obviously abandoned by Lucy in her haste to escape. The other containing the single weapon had disappeared. Mr Doyle explained how he came to be in the tunnels.

  “I got a message through to MI5,” he said. “They were able to tell me who was the owner of Featherwick. Someone by the name of Smith!” Mr Doyle gave a brief laugh. “They were also able to tell me the same owner also had a piece of land not far away.”

  “The railway tunnel!”

  “Indeed,” Mr Doyle said. “The tunnel was part of a project that went bankrupt during the war and was never completed. I was able to gain access to the tunnel a few miles down the track and follow it here.”

  “Mr Doyle,” Jack said.

  “Yes, my boy.”

  “You really are the world’s greatest detective.”

  Mr Doyle looked embarrassed. “I actually have a cousin who is rather good too, but he’s another story.”

  The detective led them through the tunnels to a winding metal staircase that led upwards to the street.

  Jack inhaled fresh air deep into his lungs. They stood on a quiet backstreet near Saint Paul’s Cathedral. They made their way to a nearby cross street.

  “It’s very quiet,” Jack said.

  “Most of London has been evacuated,” Mr Doyle said.

  At that moment a steam car came chuffing down the street at high speed. It drew to a halt. General Churchill leaned out, a cigar clenched firmly between his teeth.

  “Mr Doyle and Jack Mason!” General Churchill said in astonishment. “What a pleasure! Have you had any success in locating the bomb?”

  General Churchill climbed out of the vehicle and listened in amazement as Jack described the events of the last few hours. When he finished, General Churchill chewed impatiently on his cigar. “We’ve had police searching the city from end to end. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to search every single street and every single building. I doubt –.”

  He broke off as his bottom jaw quivered. “I fear we may lose this great city.”

  Lucy said something to me while I was in the water, Jack thought. She was smiling. She thought she would win, but…

  “Maybe not,” Jack said quietly.

  Both the men looked at him.

  “There was something Lucy said before she left,” Jack recalled. “She said, ‘It will be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “Just a figure of speech,” General Churchill said. “People say that all the time.”

  “No,” Jack said. “It was the way she said it. She looked quite pleased with herself. As if she were enjoying some sort of secret joke.”

  The three of them stood in silence pondering the words. Mr Doyle frowned, drawing his eyebrows together in concentration. General Churchill chewed thoughtfully on his cigar.

  “Like looking for a needle in a haystack,” General Churchill mused. “There certainly aren’t any haystacks in London.”

  “But there is a needle,” Mr Doyle said. “Cleopatra’s needle.”

  They stared at him in astonishment.

  “Cleopatra’s needle is an obelisk located on the Victoria Embankment not far from here,” Mr Doyle explained to Jack.

  “That must be it,” Jack said.

  “It’s that or nothing,” General Churchill replied.

  They piled into his vehicle and headed towards the Thames.

  “Will we get there in time?” Jack asked.

  “Lucy will have given herself time to escape,” Mr Doyle said. “But if she were escaping the city in a private airship she would probably only need an hour.”

  They turned right onto the Victoria Embankment. General Churchill increased the speed of the vehicle. All around them the city lay quiet and still, the moon bathing it in silver light. The Thames lay to their left as they zoomed past it. Finally General Churchill slowed the vehicle. He drew it to a halt. Even before they had climbed out, Jack was pointing.

  “There!”

  A truck sat in the shadow of the obelisk. It looked altogether unremarkable. Jack realised it could have been the vehicle from the tunnel, but he could not be certain. They hurried to the rear of the truck. Mr Doyle pushed the tarp aside.

  “This is it,” he said quietly. “Now we have to disarm the device.”

  “I have good news about that,” General Churchill said. “I have instructions copied straight from Mr Bell. As long as we follow them, we should be able to disarm the device.”

  The three of them climbed into the rear of the vehicle. The bomb lay in the centre. A small illuminated panel was located in the dead centre on the top.

  “This is a countdown device,” Mr Doyle said. “We have fifteen minutes till detonation.”

  “
Then let’s not waste any time,” General Churchill said. “Jack, wait outside.”

  Jack opened his mouth to argue, then realised it would only be a misuse of time. Without a word, he climbed out of the van. He stood silent and still, looking up at the sky. It was a clear night. He remembered looking up at the sky from the orphanage and not being able to see the stars. Tonight he could see them clearly. It seemed the whole arm of the galaxy lay across the city, a huge comforting arm embracing London in its grasp. Jack walked over to the river and looked across it. The water rose and fell gently as it had for thousands of years.

  I don’t want to die, Jack thought. I miss my parents and I love them, but I’m not ready to join them. Not yet. There’s too much here. There’s Mr Doyle and Scarlet and a whole world of adventure. I’m not ready to go. Not yet.

  A sound came from behind him.

  The tarpaulin on the truck was pushed back and the two men stepped out. They slowly walked over to Jack at the side of the river.

  “Is it –.” Jack began.

  “It’s done,” Mr Doyle said. “We’ve defused the device.”

  “So we’re safe,” Jack said.

  “We’re safe,” General Churchill replied. “And London is safe. And England is safe. Thanks to you both.”

  “All in a day’s work,” Mr Doyle said.

  “Oh,” Jack said. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  Chapter Thirty–Three

  The next day turned out to be the busiest day of Jack’s short life. After the weapon was taken away by the armed forces, Mr Doyle and Jack endured several hours of questioning by MI5. After the intelligence bureau finished with them, the heads of several other organisations took turns quizzing them. Finally even the local police asked a few questions so they could close their files.

  Later that day they received a note from Scarlet and Mr Bell, asking if they could call on them at Bee Street at four o’clock. As Jack finished combing his hair for the tenth time – he had to look his best for Scarlet – he heard a light knock at his door.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Mr Doyle appeared. “Hello Jack.”

  “Are they here, yet?” Jack eyed himself in the mirror.

  “No, not yet.” Mr Doyle looked embarrassed.