Steampunk'd

by Jean Rabe

  Justice, indeed! Penelope thought indignantly. Wasn’t this the United States of America? Still, science clubs sprang up all over town during Penelope’s youth, to rejoice in the new knowledge, not so different from the days of the Renaissance, but over time almost all the girls dropped out. They had good ideas, but lacked the male drive to bring them to fruition, if not to market. Ironically, it had been her former beloved who had pushed Penelope to take her first invention to manufacturer after manufacturer until someone got past the fact it was a person in a shirtwaist and not a vest presenting it. It had done well enough for her to buy Papa that handsome carriage he had so coveted, plus furnishing her laboratory with the latest gizmos. But since then, things had not gone so well. In two years, Albin had sold few of his own inventions. Those had brought in good money, but he craved the headlines, like Mr. Edison and Mr. Tesla were obtaining. So, when her detection device was ready, she had gone to the patent office with it, only to find he had beaten her there by two days with his own rendered drawings of her work. Naturally, the engagement was over, but the humiliation had not ended there. He had gotten his headlines, all right, when he sold the rights to the Pinkertons. They used it to solve a major murder by proving a man’s wife had poisoned him with antimony. It was extracted from his digestive juices in such small quantities that the doctor had overlooked it, but a similar investigation of his longer-lived tissues such as hair and nails had proved it was not consumed over years as his wife had claimed, but in a recent high concentration. The widow was in prison, and Albin was in clover. To add further humiliation, Albin was to receive a medal from the governor.

  Everyone believed Albin, not her. She was going, though. No one could say she was a coward. Her reputation was at stake. She wanted justice, and she would have it.

  The next evening she was met just inside the door of the club by a mechanical porter, which resembled a mobile coat rack that sprouted small trays, hooks, and shelves at intervals down its five-foot length. Its designation, No. 31, was etched upon a small plaque. This was one of the original robot servers that had been designed for the club, and one of its most reliable. Upon approaching her, a lens not unlike the device in her eye scanned down her person. A small gramophone about chest height began to spin, and a needle in a stout round cartridge dropped down upon the disk.

  “Good evening—click!—Miss Galferd,” said the tinny voice that issued from the round speaker at the top of the brass pole. “I will be your attendant for the evening. Click! May I take your hat (click) . . . and cloak (click) . . . and train case (click) . . . and reticule (click) . . . and fan?”

  The manner of its speech was labored, but Penelope was accustomed to it. She surrendered her feather-covered bonnet, her plum-colored wool cloak, the small black morocco case and silk wrist bag, revealing her low-cut but not immodest evening dress of pale blue silk. The silver bangles on her wrists went well with the spinning crystal in her eye. “I will keep the fan, if you please.” No. 31 hung the outer garments in a cupboard adjacent to the door, but placed the other two objects upon its frame.

  “As you please. Click!” A small black lacquer tray extended itself toward her on a jointed bronze arm. It bore two graceful crystal goblets. “Lemonade or champagne?”

  Penelope wished for the fortification of the champagne, but decided she needed a clear head. She took the lemonade and entered the anteroom of the lecture hall, No. 31 close behind.

  An orchestra of clockwork musicians with bronze skin and riveted tuxedos nodded along to the beat as they blew or strummed or struck their gleaming instruments. The violinist, his brass eyelids formed as if they were shut in ecstasy, stood at the head of the string section, sawing away at his instrument. Members, men in black suits and women in colorful gowns, chatted around it in small groups. By the movement of their hands, Penelope guessed that they were discussing the contents of the glass case in the center of the room. Penelope identified the contents at a glance.

  Floating around the room just above the heads of the crowd were miniature airships from which depended trays of canapés. They lowered themselves upon command to allow the attendees to partake. Penelope glanced at the nearest tray. Salmon croquettes. Those would make her feel queasy. Perhaps not.

  She looked up. Her eyes were caught by a pair of brilliant blue eyes of a man on the opposite side of the room. Albin. He nodded to her politely, but his lips smirked. Smirked! What an insufferable clod! She cut him dead, turning her head sharply to the right and breaking off her gaze. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him look disappointed. Did he think that she would rejoice in his success? Far from it. Penelope felt her heart pound. Albin was the handsomest man in the room, with his shining black hair, waxed mustache, and strong jaw. How could such a rotten snake still make her feel giddy?

  “No. 31, will you secure for me one of the small receiving rooms?” Penelope asked.

  “Of course—click!—Miss Galferd. I believe—click!—meeting room No. 2 is available.”

  “Go there and make certain. I shall be there directly.” Penelope went in search of her first subject.

  “Won’t you sit down, Professor Finbury?” she asked, as the president of the club entered. In the distance she could hear laughter and music.

  Finbury blinked into the darkness. Penelope had arranged the dome-shaded electric lamps so they were shining full on her face. On the round table before her she had arranged a small tableau of equipment. From her dynamo, a rectangular blued-steel box, black cloth-covered leads draped off the table and disappeared underneath the waistband of her gown. Penelope straightened her back firmly. Her cheeks pinked as the dynamo whirred.

  “What gives, Miss Galferd?”

  “I needed to speak to you about something very important. I would like to put before you two theories.”

  Finbury glanced at his pocket watch. “Is now the best time? The governor has just arrived, and the presentation will start shortly.”

  Penelope nodded. “Now is the only time that is appropriate, sir. It won’t take long.”

  “Very well,” he sighed, settling into one of the creaky, rolling armchairs. “What are they?”

  “The first postulatum is that I am not the inventive idiot that Albin Beauregard has sworn me to be to you and most of the membership. I claim my inventions, sir. The patent officer has met me many times. The second is that an intelligent being can be so overcome by feelings of trust that one says imprudent or rash things, with a subset of this theory that the person receiving the out-pouring may or may not be worthy of them.”

  “Miss Galferd,” Finbury began impatiently, “bringing up this old grievance on the very eve of Mr. Beauregard’s triumph before his peers is small and petty, not to mention unladylike!” He rose to his feet. “I have to get back.”

  “In the name of science, then, in the search of truth,” Penelope said, feeling desperate. “I would like to demonstrate something for you. Please.”

  She gestured Finbury to a seat. It took a while for him, but he settled in the chair. Relieved but wary, Penelope wound up the miniature gramophone and set it running.

  “. . . Nobody had an inkling as to the tack I was taking regarding refrigeration, I set to work like I was on fire. I started out with nitrogen. . . .”

  The voice was thin and distant, but it was unmistakably that of Professor Finbury. He recognized himself at once. He seemed to wake up from a dream or, by the fiery expression in his eyes, a nightmare. He let the small cylinder play out, then confronted Penelope in a rage.

  “When did I say all this?”

  “This afternoon, to me, in the library of this club.”

  “I never did! I would never speak so openly of my research! It is top secret!”

  “You did, sir. Your voice went into a radio receiver in miniature concealed in my corsage that traveled through the electrical grid of this city to my home and this gramophone. I had put you in a state of calm receptiveness in which you would confide in me.”

  “Ridicu
lous! How?”

  She touched her eyepiece. “This also is one of my inventions. After the work of Herr Franz Anton Mesmer, I designed it to bestow a state of openness upon the subject, so that he or she would trust me as if I was a person they dearly loved and wished to please.”

  “Well, it’s not working now!” Finbury said. “I am appalled at you! No. 18, will you ask Mr. Deed of the Pinkertons to join us?”

  “Of course—click!—sir.” The robot server glided toward the door.

  “Just one moment, please,” Penelope said. “Don’t let it go.” Finbury frowned at her, but waved a hand.

  “Hold up a moment, No. 18.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Well?” he demanded.

  Penelope steeled herself with resolution. “Professor, I asked you for time to prove my theories. The first is that I have scientific abilities. I will show you the patent applications I made out regarding the eyepiece and radio receiver, plus the power source that drives them. The second is that one can be appallingly and catastrophically indiscreet in the face of someone whom one loved or trusted. I made you trust me. The device is not operational now. I beg you, in the name of science, to be just and fair. I was robbed of my work and my reputation. I need your help.”

  Finbury pointed at her face. “Take that thing off, if you mean it.”

  It took some time, a little pain and tears, but Penelope managed to disgorge from her eye the twinkling monocle. He held it on the palm of his hand, regarding it in wonder. He removed a strong lens on a black ribbon from his watch pocket and went over it, turning it in his fingers.

  “This is . . . this is marvelous work, my dear,” Finbury murmured, tweaking open the small side hatch that housed the crystal. He played with the minute spindle in the casing that allowed it to spin. “And you say it has a mild Mesmeric effect?

  “Mild to strong, depending upon the setting. I thought it could be useful to treat patients with mental disorders. I never dreamed that I would have to use it on . . . people of sound minds. But it does work. As you have seen.”

  “And the power source?”

  Blushing, she described the corset and the elasticated strings. “It runs on alternating current, of course, as dear Mr. Tesla suggested.”

  Finbury looked up at her sideways. “I . . . er, well . . . and so you are suggesting to me that Albin really did steal your device that the Pinkertons used to solve that murder?

  Penelope put her hands on his arm in supplication. “More than suggesting, sir! I need your help to prove it. Justice needs to be done, in more than one way.”

  Finbury tapped the lens to his lips. He fell silent for a long time. “Don’t see that honor leaves me any choice. Very well. It’s not just me that has to take you at your say so. But I will back you in your suit to regain your reputation. You deserve that, at least.”

  Penelope felt as if she might burst into tears with relief, but that would not be the act of a scientist, a vindicated scientist—well, almost vindicated. “Thank you.”

  “You’re going to do all the work, not me.” He pointed nervously at the gramophone. “But what are you going to do about that?”

  Penelope smiled. She slid the oxblood-red cylinder of his voice from under the miniature needle and held it up. “This is the only proof that exists in all the world of what you said during our interview. I am in your hands.” She gave him the cylinder.

  “Well, well.” He closed his hand on the fragile tube of wax, crushing it into fragments. He gave her a fatherly smile as he dusted his hands together. “We don’t need further proof, not between us. No. 18, will you clean that up?”

  “Of course, sir!” A black-bristled brush flipped out from the side of the mechanical attendant’s frame.

  “I have . . . recordings of other members of the board,” Penelope ventured. “Do you want to destroy them now?”

  “Save them. We might need them later.” Finbury smiled as he extended a hand to help Penelope to her feet. “Bring all these contraptions,” he said. “We’re going to go earn that trust you put in me.”

  Eyes turned curiously toward Penelope and the professor as they appeared in the hall again, followed by their two attendants. Except for her monocle, Penelope’s devices were tucked safely away in her train case on the base of No. 31’s frame. She shook with nerves at having to confront the entire membership, but to regain her reputation, she would do worse. In fact, she already had. Professor Finbury clearly thought she was there to blackmail him. It just proved what terrible things happened when one combined emotion with pure science. She never would again.

  She made her way down into the raked auditorium and slipped in beside Emmaline Armor, of the meat-packing family, who was a keen chemist, and a firm supporter of Penelope’s. When many of the members turned their backs on her, Emmaline stood firm. They squeezed one another’s hands affectionately. Finbury strode down to the dais and took his place at the podium. Mr. Deed of the Pinkertons sat at his right hand, his federal badge shining on the breast pocket of his nondescript gray suit. At his left hand, Albin sat with his palms on his knees, delighted to be the center of attention. When he met her eyes, he grinned. Penelope blushed with fury. The display cases from the anteroom rolled themselves down the side ramps of the chamber and arrayed themselves at the sides of the stage.

  Finbury opened the meeting. He introduced the eight men and women who comprised the rest of the board, sitting in a row behind him with their arms crossed, the governor, and Mr. Deed.

  “All of you read the papers,” Finbury said, speaking into the amplifier. His voice emerged from six horn-shaped speakers around the large chamber. “So I don’t need to tell you the details of the great case that has brought attention to our fine society. Just let me introduce Mr. Reginald Deed of the Pinkerton Agency of Washington, D.C., and he’ll tell you all about what he’s here for. Mr. Deed!” Finbury sat beside the governor.

  The gray-suited man stood up to enthusiastic applause. Penelope joined in, for he was not the author of her woes. He cleared his throat and leaned into the audio receiver.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, members of the club, governor, we of the Pinkerton Agency are here tonight to honor Mr. Albin Beauregard for service to this nation. You are all a lot of noted inventors, but it was his device,” he gestured to the case at the far right of the stage, which came forward as if to take a bow, “that enabled us to find evidence to convict a heinous murderess. I am so pleased that a citizen scientist of his mind-power and skill. . .”

  “Ahem,” Finbury said, raising a finger. “Point of order?”

  “What?” Deed asked. “What point of order?”

  “Well, sir,” Finbury said, hooking his thumbs into his pockets and leaning back easily. “I want to make certain that what you believe is true. It never was asked and answered whether this was solely his device, not to the absolute satisfaction of the entire membership. Or was it?”

  Miss Armor stood up. “No, it wasn’t!”

  Albin, his face scarlet, sprang to his feet. “What is this, sir? What call have you to humiliate me in front of the entire membership of this club, not to mention the governor?”

  “Well, sir,” Finbury said. “I find myself a trifle humiliated. It has come to my attention that there is some question whether you are the full and sole inventor of this chemical separator. Miss Penelope Galferd also makes a claim to it, and I am inclined to credit her claim. She’s been surprisingly reserved about it. In her place, I’d be calling you out.”

  Mr. Deed looked appalled. “Is this true, Mr. Beauregard?”

  Albin glared. “Of . . . of course not! Miss Galferd is a fine and charming lady, but as most of you know, she has little skill at the sciences . . .”

  “Well, I disagree with you, sir,” Finbury interrupted. “In the past hour she has demonstrated to me her inventive genius, and the detector would be lower on the scale than the devices that I just saw. They are enough to support her accusation. I call on you as a scientist an
d a gentleman to at least share credit.”

  Albin was furious. “Nonsense. The chemical separator is mine.”

  Finbury beckoned to her. “Miss Galferd, will you speak up in your own defense?”

  Penelope steeled herself. This is not the way that she thought Finbury would defend her. It drew attention to her, and she deplored the spotlight. She had no choice but to rise and throw her shoulders back.

  “Yes, Mr. President. I created that device. In fact, Mr. Beauregard did not aid in its discovery at all.”

  “I am so sorry to disabuse the lady,” Albin said smoothly, “but Miss Galferd, for all that she is an enthusiastic member of this society, is just not smart enough to have designed it.” Penelope gasped. “I apologize if I insult her, but it is no more than the truth. After all, what have we seen of her presentations to the club in the past? Trifles, built upon the shoulders of giants.” He shrugged, as if to suggest two of those shoulders were his own.

  Penelope could not contain herself. “You rotten prevaricator! I am every bit your equal.”

  “Language, Miss Galferd!” exclaimed Mrs. Shanahan, the vice-president. Boos broke out among the crowd. A few men shook her fists at her.

  “Prove it!” Albin said, with an infuriating smile on his lips. She knew she could not. His notes were identical to hers, copied word for word. All she had was her statement against his. The faces of the membership as well as the executive committee were stony.

  She would have to defend herself before all of these people. How she wished she had not even started out to challenge Albin. She felt tears start to her eyes. She dashed a hand against them. Her knuckles barked against the hunk of steel and bronze in her eye socket.