Arcadia Snips and the Steamwork Consortium

by Robert Rodgers

  'Buttresses! Flying buttresses!' the second had roared. 'With steeples! More steeples! Steeples on top of steeples!'

  'And perhaps a bit of wood leafing around the windows.

  Nothing too flashy, mind you, but just a few subtle touches here and there—'

  '—arches! More flying buttresses! Six fireplaces! A balcony! And—'

  'Let's slap on some avocado paint and call it a day,' the third had said.

  The final result broke six city ordinances and at least two laws of physics.

  When the three investigators arrived, they found someone attending to a statue of a muse located near the front door, polishing up her naughty bits with a dirty hanky. The man was just finishing buffing her to a marbleized shine when he noticed them approaching.

  "Good afternoon, sir," Miss Primrose announced. "We are members of the Watts Detective Agency, here to investigate the matter of your recent unfortunate tragedy—"

  The man spat into his hanky, gave the statue one last swab, then turned to approach the three of them. He was older than old; he was old back when old was still a fad. When God had said 'Let there be light', this was the fellow who had been sitting on the back porch, shaking his cane and complaining about all the racket those whippersnappers were making with their new dang-fangled invention.

  "Pleasure t'meet ya," he said, giving Miss Primrose a crooked grin and offering her a grimy palm. "I'm Dunnigan McGee, the janitor. Is this your first time here?"

  "I am afraid so," Miss Primrose admitted, refraining from taking the hand. "You have a very, ah, interesting building here,"

  she observed, glancing past Dunnigan.

  "Aye, she's a beaut." He gave the door a sturdy kick and shoved it open with his shoulder. "We'll probably have some papers for you t'sign. Indemnities against electrocution, combustion, subtraction, that sort of thing—"

  "Subtraction?" Snips asked. "What do you mean,

  'subtraction'?"

  "Math can get a little out of hand around these parts, ma'am."

  The interior of the Steamwork looked worse than the exterior; it was held together by nothing more than springs, duct-tape, and liberal amounts of whimsy. Lengths of pipes speared overhead, spewing out plumes of scalding steam at irregular intervals; tables groaned beneath the weight of alchemical apparatuses and books explaining the intimate details of flying sloths' mating rituals. On quite a few occasions, the detectives could see past the scorched ceiling to the floor above through holes caused by various explosions. These pits had been patched up with a few bits of metal grating and nets.

  "What is it exactly that you do here?" Snips asked.

  "A little bit of everything," Dunnigan said. "We're a factory for ideas, missus."

  Snips hmphed. "Any good ones?"

  "Sometimes," Dunnigan admitted. "Sometimes, well—it's complicated."

  A case of indigestion stirred somewhere in the bowels of the building. A dull thump and a series of distant explosions rattled the jars on the shelves and sent several experiments clattering to the floor. Dunnigan sighed.

  "Things have been a bit stressed since Basil's accident," he said.

  "Are you convinced it was an accidental death, then?" Miss Primrose asked.

  Dunnigan shrugged. "Accidents are pretty common around these parts, 'specially with someone like Basil. Man couldn't put together his afternoon tea without blowing something up. Mr. Eddington'll want to know you're here, of course; if you wait in the lobby, I'll be with you in a moment."

  "Of course," Miss Primrose gracefully replied.

  The Steamwork's lobby had been designed to house their more prominent guests; it was lushly furnished in an Egyptian motif, with expensive blue-black sofas lined in gold tassels and sleek furniture built from varnished maple and glass. A roaring fire snarled in an artificial hearth, glutting itself upon a meal of flammable gas.

  "I'll be back in a jiffy," Dunnigan said, turning to the three of them. "Make yourselves comfortable." Once he left, they seated themselves and mulled over the turn of events.

  "So," Snips said, turning to Watts. "How do you plan on proceeding with the investigation?"

  "Oh, well, if I am going to get to solving this mystery, it's best that I begin at the beginning," he said. "Miss Primrose, you wouldn't happen to know where the beginning is, would you?"

  Miss Primrose's eyebrows pinched together in intense thought. For a scant moment, she had the look of a calculating machine steadily clicking its way through a difficult problem. At last, she said: "I think that to begin, you must perform a thorough interrogation of the tea and biscuits, so you may eliminate them as a potential suspect."

  "Oh, quite good," Watts said, nodding. "Quite good. I knew that, of course. I just like to make sure others are keeping up on their detecting." He reached for a nearby biscuit, preparing it for a barrage of questions with a small knife and a bit of butter.

  "In the meanwhile, Miss Snips and I will attend to the incidental details—so you may have no distractions while you pursue this important route of inquiry," Miss Primrose said.

  "Ah! Excellent. You are as helpful as ever, Miss Primrose."

  "Thank you."

  Dunnigan soon returned. "Well, Mr. Eddington'll to speak with you whenever you're ready. In the meanwhile, you're free to inspect the Steamwork at your leisure."

  "Very well. If you'll pardon us, Mr. Watts." Miss Primrose rose to her feet.

  "Er," Snips glanced between Miss Primrose and Watts, then dropped her voice into a whisper as she stood up besides her.

  "Where are we going again?"

  "To attend to the 'incidental' parts of the crime," Miss Primrose said. "Specifically, the scene of Mr. Copper's demise."

  ~*~

  Basil Copper was seriously dead.

  The entire workshop had been consumed in an explosion that had left the far wall and ceiling exposed to the elements; as the three of them stepped in, they found themselves staring out at the vast and bustling cityscape below. Whatever destructive force had been unleashed here had been quite thorough in its destruction; nary a tool or scrap of paper remained in a semi-recognizable state.

  Snips looked around. "So he blew himself up."

  "That would be the obvious assumption," Miss Primrose said. She lifted her skirts up to step across the scorched debris, crouching down to more closely inspect the rubble. Immediately, she grew pale.

  "Mr. Dunnigan," she said, doing her best to smother the quaver in her voice. "Have you already done a thorough search of this room for—ah, his remains?"

  "Oh, aye, I swept up a little before you came in, Miss Primrose. Just thought it would be polite. Basil did always hate a mess."

  "I think you might have missed—ahem." Quickly, she stood up, straightening herself and pointing down at the pile. "I think you might have missed Mr. Copper's ear."

  Dunnigan scooted over and peered down. "Well wouldn't you know it—so I did! Huh. I'll put it in the bag with the rest of him." He reached down to snatch the scorched scrap of skin.

  Snips waited until Dunnigan had left with the offending appendage, then turned to adjust her hat in a mirror shard that had fused with the wall. "So what's the deal with Watts?"

  Miss Primrose returned to her bag, opening it with a click.

  Several shelves brimming with beakers, flasks, and mechanical curiosities folded out. Arming herself with a set of brass-framed magnifying lenses mounted on a leather head-strap, she turned to Snips and fired her an optically-enlarged glare. "I think the better question to ask would be what is the 'deal' with you, Miss Snips.

  Why on earth has Count Orwick assigned what is clearly a criminal to an otherwise legitimate investigation?"

  Snips tapped the lens aside, leaving her exposed to Miss Primrose's scalding glare. She waggled her eyebrows. "Maybe he thought you could do with a little illegitimacy?"

  Miss Primrose scowled, snapped the lens back into place, and turned back to the ashes. "As for your previous inquiry, Mr. Watts is a brilliant investig
ator. Age has merely taken its toll. Thus the responsibility for solving this crime falls upon us—or more accurately, myself."

  "Then why are you working for him?"

  "He was—is—a great man. He deserves respect. As for my other motives, are they not obvious? Apply some modicum of intellect to your own question and I am sure you will stumble upon an answer."

  Snips thought about it for a while, scratching at the back of her head. "Because you've got a thing for him?"

  "Please! I would sooner be smitten with a toad. I work for him because it is otherwise impossible for me to solve crimes. And since you seem to remain insistent about distracting me from solving this crime, perhaps you should go ahead and make yourself useful."

  "How?"

  "Interrogate some of the staff here."

  "About what?"

  "About how many lumps of sugar they take with their tea!"

  she snapped, then sighed. "About the case, Miss Snips. About the victim. About any data that might be pertinent to our investigation.

  Now go! Shoo! I am working."

  Snips turned to leave; just as she was stepping out, she caught sight of a curious thing poking out from beneath a rock.

  Crouching down, she brushed aside a few pieces rubble and found what looked to be a burnt slip of colored paper.

  Snips frowned. She looked to the oblivious Miss Primrose, then stuffed the paper into her pocket. Doing her best to remain unnoticed, she stepped out the door.

  ~*~

  CHAPTER 8: IN WHICH OUR TITULAR PROTAGONIST MEETS THE DAFFODIL SCION AND MR. EDDINGTON COMPARES NOTES WITH THE MASKED MENACE

  ~*~

  The Steamwork was beginning to sink into a deep lull; only a few men scurried down the steam-choked corridors. No one seemed interested in the small shabbily dressed girl who slipped through its halls.

  Snips hadn't gotten very far before she walked straight into someone else and collapsed with them into a heap of surprised cries and paperwork. When she at last managed to extract herself, she was surprised to find a young light-haired man who resembled a frantic rabbit locked in a desperate search for his hole. In an instant, he was down on his knees, snatching up every document he could find.

  "Late, late, late," the man said, muttering to himself.

  "Terribly late! So sorry sir, didn't see you there, have to go—"

  Snips rolled forward and perched herself in front of him, thrusting her face into his. The man squeaked and threw himself backwards, scrambling to flatten his spine to the wall.

  "Hey," Snips said. "I'm a girl."

  "You are! I am doubly sorry, then," he quickly responded.

  "Uh—"

  "Doubly sorry that I'm a girl?" Snips said.

  "No! Doubly sorry that—um, I'm sorry, what was I sorry about again?"

  "What's your name?"

  "William," he said. "Please pardon me, I'm in a bit of a rush with these last changes, and I—"

  "Right, right. I'm doing an investigation, though. Real important stuff," Snips said. As the man struggled to arrive on his feet, she sprang up and slapped her palm on the wall beside his head. He was a foot taller than her, but he cowered at her presence, holding the paperwork out in front of him like a shield. "Mind if I ask you a few questions?"

  The boy's face began to burn. "Err—questions? I suppose, um, if it's important. Do you mind if you ask me on the way, though?" He ducked out beneath her arm, darting over to pluck up a sheet that had escaped him. "I’m behind schedule as it is."

  "Fine, fine," Snips said, sliding her arms behind her back and moving to walk besides him. "What's all this business?" Snips leaned forward to peek at one of the sheets at the top of the pile.

  "All these numbers—"

  "It's for the Steamwork's new calculation engine," William said, quickening his pace to a loose jog. "Bank data that we must input."

  "Calculation engine? The Steamwork has one of those things they use in banks?" Snips asked. "To, like, calculate interest and all that junk?"

  "We've completed one, yes," William said. "It's one of the more important projects we've been working on."

  "Why? Don't the banks have them already?"

  "Yes, but the calculation engines they use possess fundamental flaws," William explained. "They can be damaged or disrupted by creative mathematics, or a mistake on the part of an operator. The recent plague of disasters facing the banks is representative of that."

  "Oh," Snips said, wrinkling her nose. "Don't tell me you buy into that whole Professor Hemlock business."

  William looked surprised. "What's not to believe, Miss...?"

  "Snips," she said. "Just Snips. And Hemlock's a joke; a scam they use to sell news rags. A bedtime story mathematicians use to scare their kids into showing their work when they solve for X."

  "That may be, but the fact that a misplaced decimal point can bring Aberwick's financial district to a crashing halt remains a problem in need of a solution," William said. "Our new calculation engine is that solution."

  Snips noticed that as the discussion turned to his engine, William relaxed more; the nervous agitation flickered out of his eyes as he took on a confident stride.

  "So, what? You're going to sell it to the banks?"

  "Oh, no. It's too large for the banks to build," William said.

  "It occupies the entire basement of the Steamwork. No, we're going to rent it to them."

  "Rent it?" A gentle hum had gradually been growing as they walked; as they reached the wide stairwell, it grew to a clanking purr. Snips peered down the stairs, inching her way forward.

  "Yes, rent it," William said, stepping past her and moving downward. Snips reluctantly followed, listening as William explained. "In addition to the calculation engine, we've fitted all the banks with pneumatic piping that connects them to the Steamwork. We’re able to send near-instant messages to any bank in Aberwick, and vice versa."

  "Like mail carriages," Snips said.

  "No, it’s not a large carriage," William corrected her. "It’s an array of pipes."

  "Sounds like grave dealings."

  "Anyway, once the improved engine is complete, we'll rent them space on it, which is impervious to disruption via operator error. The banks will send us all their accounting information, we’ll do all the calculations, and then we’ll send it back to them."

  "Seems risky," Snips said. "Letting you guys run all the banks' books."

  "Oh, they'd still run their own engines," William said.

  "We'd only be on stand-by as a back up, in case their engines failed. They could send a message to us, requesting the lost or unavailable information, and we'd help them fill in their blanks. In addition, when their engines go down, we can do the calculations for them."

  "I think I see," Snips said, and by then they had arrived in the Steamwork’s basement. It was a dauntingly wide chamber that occupied nearly a block of space beneath the city; it was deep enough to swallow entire sections of the apartments that bustled on the streets above it. Every inch of it below the catwalk they now stood on was occupied by a machine—one single whirring, grinding, spinning, humming machine.

  It was a consortium of gears and cogs all spinning in tandem, with platforms cutting over it, across it, and through it— brimming with half-a-dozen engineers and mathematicians, dressed neatly and weaving their way through the metal passages that the machine provided, taking notes and making adjustments.

  Snips gawked; William smiled.

  "This is the machine," William announced. "My calculation engine."

  "You—you built this?" Snips asked, unable to hide her incredulity.

  "Well, not by myself, no," William said. "Mr. Eddington provided much of the funding, and I’ve only been making improvements on previous designs. But I was chiefly responsible for designing the mathematical functions it performs," he added, a sliver of pride slipping into his voice. He moved forward to his office, which was located in a niche on the other side of the catwalk; Snips followed, trying not to
stare at the twisting labyrinth of gears that churned beneath her.

  When she stepped into the office, the first thing she noticed was the umbrella. It was long and heavy, and as black as obsidian; it had a stylized hilt made of ivory with a butterfly forming the knob at its base.

  William set the paperwork on his desk. "So, what is it exactly that you’re investigating, Miss Snips?"

  Snips moved towards the umbrella, reaching out to touch it.

  "Hm? Oh, Mr. Copper’s death," she said blankly. "Where did you get this?"

  "I think you might be in the wrong place, then," William said. "Mr. Copper wasn’t involved in this project. Not as far as I’m aware, anyway. As for the umbrella, ah, well," he hesitated. "It was my father’s."

  "Really," Snips said, picking it up. It was far heavier than one would expect an ordinary umbrella to be.

  "Yes, yes. Actually, I’d rather not talk about it, if it is all the same," William said. "Unless it’s important to your investigation, of course. But I can’t imagine how it could be."

  "No, not very important," Snips admitted, setting the umbrella down and turning back to William. "Did you know Copper well?"

  "We had met before," William said. "I once visited his apartment, a year ago—when I first began working for the Steamwork."

  "What was he working on?"

  "To be honest, I do not know," William said. "His work was always very hush-hush. I actually didn’t see him very often around the Steamwork. He’d report in and more or less disappear. Of course, we worked on opposite ends of the building. I’m afraid I really didn’t know the fellow that well," he confessed. "Is there something else I could help you with, possibly?"

  "Sure," Snips said. "What’s your favorite color?"

  "Green," he replied instantly, then paused. "Er, what?"

  "These are important questions," Snips said, trying to sound as gruff as she could. "Are you trying to interfere with my investigation?"