Sherlock Holmes in Orbit

by Mike Resnick (ed)

  “Well, well,” said Holmes, warily approaching the row of six wire cages which had been neatly aligned along the partition wall. “It would appear that Apollo is not as rare a hound as we thought”

  “My word!” said I. For there before us, staring intently and growling at us, were six identical pit terriers, all as much like Lord Farthington’s hound as if they had sprung from the same litter. “Do you think, Holmes, that Farthington’s dog has been replaced by one of these lookalikes?”

  Holmes smiled strangely, contemplatively. “No, Watson. I daresay Lord Farthington has his own true Apollo back.” “Then what of these fakes ... ?”

  “Fakes may be too harsh a word,” replied Holmes, studying the animals intently. “But whatever the answer, I think it must lie beyond the next partition.”

  Screwing up our courage, we advanced farther into the spacious warehouse. Rounding the second partition brought us face to face with the most bizarre sight I think I may have ever seen.

  It looked like a nightmare vision of the kind of laboratory equipment of which Holmes himself was so fond, enlarged to a giant’s scale and made strange beyond belief. There were rows upon rows of something resembling enormous bell jars, containing geometric arrangements of metallic plates, aglow with amber light. A huge control panel with dials and levers seemed to be connected to them and other devices with a much heavier version of telegraph wire, or perhaps something akin to the power cables found in the new Swan and Edison electrical system.

  Suspended from the ceiling were three large crystalline cylinders, filled with hazy gases and mirrored at both ends. They seemed to be focused upon a small three-sided stage whose walls and flooring were starkly painted with grid lines spaced one inch apart An identical stage stood a short distance away, facing another set of crystalline cylinders, and all was connected to the control panel by a myriad of wires and cables.

  “I swear, it looks like the devil’s own laboratory,” I ventured. “What on earth could be powering such outlandish equipment?”

  “A better question, Watson, might well be, ‘What in the earth?’“

  Holmes strode purposefully toward one side of the huge warehouse, where the flooring had been torn away.

  Massive cables from the control panel stretched down into a pit dug deep into the ground beneath the warehouse, so deep that I could not make out the bottom. I thought I could hear the faint hissing of steam cylinders far, far below us, but I could not be certain.

  “What do you make of this, Holmes?”

  “Perhaps some form of geothermal energy, like tapping into a hot spring. But I must confess, I do not fully understand the method employed.”

  A strange voice came sharply from behind us at that moment. “Actually, sir, you are doing quite well. Far better than most of your contemporaries, I daresay.”

  Holmes whirled with a start, I a bit more slowly. Facing us stood half a dozen men with various weapons drawn, tough looking hooligans who presented a sharp contrast with the well-dressed man who appeared to lead them. A bit stout, he was wearing a bowler hat that looked a few sizes too small for his curly-haired head. Wire-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose, and his bushy mustache and beard nearly hid his ruddy-lipped mouth.

  “I suppose,” the man continued, “that even uninvited guests deserve an introduction, especially when they are the distinguished Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.”

  Holmes gave a nod of acknowledgment. “And you, sir?” “Sylvester Rosewame, Professor of Physics and practitioner of various experimental disciplines, and, I might add, your captor.”

  Holmes seemed to ignore the implied threat, looking with admiration at the equipment beyond. “And, I presume, you are the inventor of this truly marvelous device.”

  Professor Rosewame’s chest swelled with pride. “Ah, you like it, do you? I thought you might. I wonder, though, if you fully comprehend what it is.”

  “I would not pretend to know its inmost workings,” Holmes replied, “but I would deduce that it is for the express purpose of duplicating matter. Specifically, it makes exact copies of things, like a workman’s boots, or a gentleman’s pit terrier.”

  “You can’t be serious, Holmes,” I protested.

  “Yes, quite,” said Holmes.

  “And quite correct, as well,” Rosewame stated. “The hounds are an obvious guess, but how did you know about the boots?”

  “While at Lord Farthington’s, I saw fresh tracks from a pair of boots that I know the police have had locked up for a week.”

  “What!” Professor Rosewame went ramrod straight and turned on the hooligan standing nearest him on the left. “Ross—did I not tell you to dispose of all the duplicate boots once we had finished testing the device?”

  The one identified as Ross cringed and shifted his beady-eyed gaze uncomfortably back and forth. “I did, sir. I did!”

  “How?”

  Ross cowered like a whipped dog. “Well ... I gave a pair to me mate, Eddie Mangles, and the rest ... the rest I sold to the secondhand clothing store ‘round the comer.”

  “There goes Lestrade’s case,” Holmes said with a chuckle.

  “We shall discuss your impropriety later, Ross.” Professor Rosewame now turned to face Sherlock Holmes with a look that was coy but no less menacing. “Now then, lest I forget my manners, I see that we have but one chair for our unexpected guests. I shall remedy that and at the same time provide the renowned Mr. Holmes with a demonstration. Ross—bring that chair to the target grid!”

  “Yes, sir!” Ross scurried over to fetch the chair. It was wooden, plain and solid, hardly fine furniture, but serviceable. Ross carried it to the first of the two three-sided stages and placed it squarely in the center of the platform.

  Still under the threat of the hooligans’ drawn weapons, Holmes and I could do naught but watch in helpless fascination as Professor Rosewame stepped over to the strange looking control panel and began throwing switches, turning dials, and adjusting levers. From somewhere deep in the pit behind us, the rhythmic hissing of steam pistons quickened and rose in volume.

  With his pudgy body and slender limbs, Rosewame looked incongruously froglike as he danced before his panel, manipulating controls. But then, as a droning hum began to grow ever louder, our attention was drawn to the gas-filled cylinders hanging above. It appeared that raw electrical power was being fed to the devices, for brilliant arcing began to crawl along the outer surfaces of the cylinders, like phosphorescent serpents in a frenzied rush from one end to the other. This seemed to cause a reaction within the gas-filled cylinders, making each one glow with a different hue.

  Beams of radiant energy now flashed out through apertures in the mirrored surfaces fronting the cylinders, beams which converged in an intense spotlight bathing the chair as it stood upon the gridded platform. I had the fleeting impression that the light was so bright I could actually see through the chair, its inner structure revealed.

  An instant later, the second set of gas-filled cylinders began to behave in much the same way, though I thought I detected a more resonant sound to the hum they produced. Their commingled beams fell upon the empty three-sided stage with such a fearsome glare of light that I had to blink and squint into it to keep from being dazzled.

  A moment later, the droning sounds abated and the eerie light of the gas-filled cylinders was quenched. My eyes adjusted, and to my astonishment, a chair now stood upon the second stage, exactly like the chair which had been placed upon the first stage.

  “Wonder of wonders ...” I exhaled.

  “Impressive,” said Sherlock Holmes. “Quite impressive.”

  “And quite functional,” said Rosewame. “At least, it will be once I’ve stabilized its molecular structure.”

  The professor threw a switch on the control panel which caused a bright green beam to shine down upon the chair from some manner of heavily shielded box hanging directly above the second stage. The wood of the chair seemed to sparkle for a moment, and then the green beam was
extinguished.

  Rosewame’s henchmen now brought the original chair and its duplicate over to us, forced us down upon the seats, and proceeded to roughly tie us up, lashing us securely to the chairs. All the while, the professor paced about us with increasing agitation.

  Holmes asked him, “I suppose you intend to sell the duplicates of Farthington’s dog to other gentlemen dog fanciers?”

  “Of course. Prize pit terriers fetch a pretty penny if you know where to sell them, with no questions asked. I need more money for my experiments. A great deal more. Lord knows, the British government is not forthcoming with grants for what it considers crackpot ideas.”

  Holmes arched an eyebrow in that annoyingly condescending look of his. “Would it not be simpler to merely duplicate gold coins or ingots?”

  The professor stopped directly before Holmes with a haughty look. “Simpler? Simpler? Oh, my my, yes, I daresay it would be a great deal simpler, indeed. There is only one tiny little problem, my dear Mr. Holmes. The bloody thing won’t work on gold, or anything else with an atomic weight above 186.22.”

  “Really?”

  “Really!”

  “Hmmm ...” mused Holmes. “Why do you suppose that is?”

  “Why? Why?” The color rose in Rosewame’s cheeks. “Well, now. I rather think that if we knew the answer to that, then perhaps it wouldn’t be a problem, now would it!”

  “I suppose not.”

  Rosewame hastily consulted his pocket watch. “Now then, Mr. Holmes, much as I would enjoy continuing this theoretical tête-à-tête with you, I have urgent and pressing business. So, I hope you will forgive our taking leave of you. We should be back by morning, and then we can decide how best to deal with the two of you.”

  “I would offer to accompany you,” Holmes coyly suggested, “but I fear the good doctor and I are a bit tied up at the moment.”

  Professor Rosewame harrumphed petulantly, then turned and headed for the door, motioning for his men to follow. In a few moments they were gone, and the warehouse-turned-laboratory was disturbingly silent once more.

  After a brief moment of futile struggle, I asked, “What are we to do, Holmes?”

  “Never fear, Watson. This is but a momentary setback. But we must hurry if we are to thwart their evil scheme.” “You know, then, what they are up to?”

  “I know part of it. To learn more, I must get free and investigate.” He seemed to be listening intently. “There, I think they are far enough away by now.”

  I watched as Holmes began to violently wrench his entire body upward in a series of spasmodic jerks, twisting slightly to his left each time. Each time, the chair upon which he was lashed rose off the floor briefly, coming to rest again an inch or so from where it had been. Within a matter of several minutes, he had managed to propel his chair around in an arc, so that we were now seated back to back. Immediately, his long, dexterous fingers began to work on the ropes binding my own wrists, with a speed and skill that would have put a fishing boat’s net-rigger to shame.

  Though working blind, as it were, he succeeded in untying my wrists within a few minutes. Once my hands were free, I was able to release the rest of the ropes restraining me, and then work on freeing Holmes. Moments later, we were both standing.

  “Now,” said Holmes, rubbing the rope marks on his wrists, “to the task at hand. We can only hope that some shred of evidence has been left behind in their haste.”

  He immediately began scouring the area around the various pieces of equipment, the control panel, even the strange energy pit itself. Next he began to check the three-sided stage upon which we had seen the original chair placed for duplication. Down upon all fours, he searched every inch of the platform, and every crack and crevice surrounding it. Suddenly, he froze, staring hard. Then his fingers pried some tiny object loose from its resting place between two floor boards, and Holmes abruptly leaped to his feet.

  “Well, Watson, I think we have the clue we need,” he announced solemnly. “But it does not answer all our questions.”

  “You’ve found a trinket?” I queried.

  Holmes held the small, shiny object aloft. “It’s no mere trinket, Watson. It is a gold watch fob, engraved with the emblem of the British Railroad Owners Society. It is a highly exclusive club whose membership is limited to the principal stockholder of each of the major railroad companies operating in England.”

  I fear my puzzled look only exasperated Holmes further. “And ... ?”

  “Don’t you see? This is not merely a stolen object. It was somehow knocked loose from the unconscious man that we ourselves saw carried in here, and then back out again.” “My word!” I gasped, as the significance of it all dawned on me. “Do you mean to say that the second body we saw carried out upon that other stretcher was in fact a duplicate of the first man?”

  “Precisely,” said Holmes. “Which can only mean that they kidnapped some unsuspecting railroad owner from his recreational den of iniquity and brought him here to create a duplicate copy. I assume that their intent is to return the real gentleman, so that no one is any the wiser, and to keep the copy to aid them in their nefarious plan.”

  “How dastardly! But, my God, Holmes—there must be at least thirteen or fourteen men who could fit that description.”

  “About a dozen that are presently in England,” he replied. “And facing the lack of any other hard evidence to reveal their plan, the only thing we can do is visit the home of each of these men to see which one is missing his fob, and question him to determine what shipment or event might be the target of these men.”

  “But that could take all night,” I protested. “Perhaps days, even.”

  “Precisely, Watson. And judging from the urgency in Professor Rosewame’s words, we must conclude there is precious little time to waste.”

  I picked up my chair, and was considering heaving it into the control panel. “This device is diabolical!”

  Holmes quickly stayed my hand. “Yes, in a way it is. But it may yet be our salvation. Now this is what I want you to do....”

  What happened next in that strange warehouse turned laboratory must surely be the most bizarre event I have ever witnessed. I have long believed Holmes to be possessed of an eidetic memory, and he once again demonstrated his skills of observation by working the dials and switches of Professor Rosewame’s device exactly as he had seen the Professor manipulate them earlier, pausing only to make a few adjustments he believed necessary.

  As the grotesque machinery began to power up, with the attendant hissing of the steam pistons ebbing up from below and the eerie droning hum growing in volume with each passing second, Holmes placed my trembling hands upon two levers sticking out from the control panel, then quickly sprang to the center of the first three-sided stage and drew himself up, ready to face the demons of Hades itself, if need be.

  “I have allowed for the difference in mass between myself and the chair, Watson, but this is still a gamble.” Holmes’s gaze shot to the cylinders pointing down at him from above, gauging the intensity of the electrical discharges crawling over them. As the unknown gases within them began to glow, he shouted, “Now, Watson—throw the levers!”

  I did as instructed, with some trepidation, then blinked as the beams of radiant energy flashed out upon Holmes with blinding intensity. His clothing, his body, even the very bones beneath his flesh seemed to turn incandescent.

  Then, as before, the second set of gas cylinders fired up, bathing the empty second stage with their intense glow. After a moment that seemed to last an eternity, I heard Holmes’s shout above the drone.

  “Cease, Watson!”

  I immediately pulled back on the levers, and as the glow faded, I was startled to see Sherlock Holmes standing not only upon the first stage, but now the second stage as well. The duplicate Holmes glanced over briefly at the first, then sprang from the stage and approached me. I must confess, I backed away a bit, more in awe than fear.

  “I’ll take over now, Watson,” said
the second Holmes, reaching for the controls I had just released. “If I must be in a dozen places at once to solve this case, then by God, I shall be!”

  With the nodding approval of the original, the second Sherlock Holmes proceeded to repeat the process in which I had just participated. More droning hums, more blinding flashes. Moments later, a third Sherlock Holmes appeared, leaping off the platform to join the second, who continued to throw the levers of the diabolical machine back and forth, again and again. Hiss, Hum, Flash! Hiss, Hum, Flash! My mind began to reel under the steady assault of sounds and bright lights and the unimaginable thing that was taking place before my very eyes. How Holmes could bear it, I do not know.

  When at last it was done, and the equipment was finally powered down, I blinked open my eyes, as if, awakening from a bad dream. But the dream was not over. Assembled before me was a baker’s dozen of Sherlock Holmeses; the original, of course, and twelve copies. I frankly could not tell one from the other.

  “Come, Watson!” they chorused in unison. “We must make haste!”

  I felt slightly ill and wondered what I might prescribe for myself in such a situation, but then the lot of them were off, running for the door like a small army detachment, their deerstalker caps snugged down and their Inverness capes flapping and swirling.

  I chased after them for four blocks until they finally halted at a comer within sight of numerous cabs and gathered in a huddle. One of them, the original, I presume, was barking out orders to the rest. Then they immediately split up into groups of one, two, or three and hailed cabs to carry them to their respective destinations. The one remaining Holmes took me by the arm and hurried me off to the last waiting conveyance.

  With a clatter of hooves, the team whisked us across town directly to Scotland Yard, where Holmes, after making a few introductory remarks to the officers and inspectors there, took up a position by the telephone. There we waited for perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes, though it seemed a good bit longer. When at last the phone rang, Holmes snatched up the earpiece and listened intently. He spoke briefly with the caller, then hung up the phone and turned to face the rest of us.