The Immorality Engine (Newbury & Hobbes Investigation)

by George Mann

  “Have you ever used your sword in anger, Sir Enoch?” Newbury indicated the rapier hanging from the other man’s belt.

  Graves seemed flustered by this sudden turn in the conversation. “I’m not sure I like the implication behind that question, Sir Maurice.”

  “It’s a simple enough question. I’d be obliged if you’d answer it.”

  “Then the answer is no, I have not.” Graves was clearly fuming now. His top lip quivered in anger. “Are you saying Sykes was murdered with a rapier?”

  “No.”

  Graves looked close to exploding. “Then I fail to see the relevance…” He trailed off, leaving his sentence hanging.

  Veronica took this as her cue to intercede. She moved a step closer to Graves, adopting a conspiratorial tone. “Sir Enoch, we do appreciate your help in this matter. We’re keen not to see a scandal develop, or to cause the members of your society any concern or inconvenience. It would be particularly disheartening if the Bastion Society were to become associated with the matter, especially as you’re running for government. It wouldn’t look at all good in the press.” She smiled sweetly. Graves shifted uneasily but didn’t respond. “We’re keen to bring the whole affair to a swift conclusion. You mentioned earlier that Sykes moved in ‘other circles.’ Perhaps you could point us at some of his associates so we could continue our investigations elsewhere?”

  Graves took a sharp intake of breath. “As much as I would like to assist you further in this matter, Miss Hobbes, my hands are, alas, tied. When I spoke of other circles, I meant just that: Sykes has friends and associates outside of the Bastion Society. If you wish to know who they are, you’ll have to find some other means of obtaining the information. I’m afraid I don’t know the man well enough to be privy to his life outside the clubhouse.”

  “Had,” Newbury said firmly. “You said he ‘has’ friends and associates outside of the society.”

  “Ah, yes. A slip of the tongue. Hasn’t quite sunk in yet, I’m afraid.” Graves reached up and brushed his hair back from his forehead in a nervous gesture. He was clearly growing uncomfortable with the conversation. He turned to look at the waiting staff, who were still buzzing around behind him, clearing the tables in preparation for afternoon visitors. “Look, I really must be getting on. I’m dreadfully sorry to hear the news about poor Sykes. But duty calls.”

  Bainbridge gave a curt nod and extended his hand, which Graves accepted. “You’ve been most helpful, Sir Enoch. Thank you very much for your time.”

  Graves nodded. “Smith will show you out.” He called across the saloon. “Smith!”

  The young man came dashing over. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old, and was clearly a member of the waiting staff. “These people were just leaving, Smith.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.” He beckoned for them to follow as he led them down the hallway to the exit. Veronica glanced back at Graves as she passed through the lobby doors and saw him staring after her, his jaw set firm; his eyes hard, cold, and full of menace.

  * * *

  “Pompous, lying idiot!” Bainbridge announced brassily, almost as soon as they were out of earshot of the front door. “It’s clear he knows far more about what’s going on than he’s prepared to reveal.”

  Newbury nodded his assent. “Agreed. What with the testimony of the butler and Graves’s obvious shock at our news, I’d almost be prepared to wager that Edwin Sykes was in attendance at the party last night. Or at least someone who looked very much like him.”

  “But Sykes is dead, Newbury. We’ve all seen his corpse laid out on a slab across town. There’s no mistaking it. So how could he be both in the morgue and at the party? And, if we’re to believe our own eyes, he was at Flitcroft and Sons, too, emptying the jewellery cases!” Bainbridge looked utterly flummoxed. “At least two places at once!”

  Newbury leaned against a nearby lamppost. He looked tired. “It’s clear to me, old man, that our eyes are somehow deceiving us. Someone is playing a very clever game, and we’ve found ourselves right in the middle of it. And after that performance from the premier, I have no doubt whatsoever that it’s somehow tied up with Enoch Graves and the strange, chivalrous world of the Bastion Society.”

  Bainbridge gave a hearty sigh. “The thing is, Newbury, what the devil are we going to do about it? It’s not as if we can just go barging in there and start causing a scene. We don’t have any grounds to search the place, even though we have reason to believe that Graves is lying to us.”

  Newbury grinned, a wicked, knowing grin. “There are ways and means, my dear Charles. Ways and means.”

  Bainbridge shook his head, but he was smiling. “Just remember, Newbury, I’m a police inspector. I work within the law.”

  “And I, Charles, am an academic and a philosopher. What harm could I possibly do?”

  Veronica gave him a wry look. “I think, Sir Charles, we’d be best advised to treat that as a rhetorical question.”

  Newbury laughed, but she saw he caught her meaning.

  “Well, Newbury,” Bainbridge said, “I fear I have some business to attend to. Would you mind escorting Miss Hobbes back to Kensington?”

  Newbury caught her eye. He was expecting her to protest. When she didn’t, he smiled graciously. “I’d be only too pleased.”

  “Excellent. In that case, I’ll call for you tomorrow after breakfast. Let’s see if we can’t devise a means to shake these Bastion fellows up a little. You, too, Miss Hobbes.” Bainbridge gave her a knowing look.

  “Until tomorrow, then, Sir Charles,” she said to his retreating back.

  Veronica waited until Bainbridge was a way up the road before she crossed to Newbury and took his arm in her own. He didn’t look at all well. “I suspect,” she said brightly, “that Mrs. Grant will be delighted to see you. It’s been a while, and she’s been sitting on that stock of Earl Grey you had her buy. I think it would be best if you allowed her to make you a pot.”

  Newbury gave a tired chuckle. “Miss Hobbes, you do have a particular way with words.”

  CHAPTER

  9

  Newbury looked as if he were about to doze off in the armchair. If he did, Veronica decided, she would let him, then wake him after an hour or two and send him home in a hansom. It wasn’t as if she were overly concerned about scandal—if she were, she might have made different choices a long time ago. Allowing Newbury to get some rest here, at her apartment, away from the temptations and the chaos of Chelsea, well, it felt … right. Not the entire night, but a few hours. And besides, she’d promised Bainbridge she’d keep him busy for a while.

  She was sitting opposite him, perched on the edge of the chaise longue, her teacup warming her hands. She watched Newbury’s chest rise and fall in a peaceful rhythm, his eyelids flutter open and closed. The only sounds were the tick-tock of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece and the roar of the passing ground trains on Kensington High Street below.

  Veronica stood and wandered over to the window, turning back the netting and gazing out across the city. In the distance an airship, low over the horizon, was drifting smoothly across the clear blue sky. It wouldn’t be long until the light began to fade.

  She wondered how Bainbridge was getting on across town. Together, she knew, they could solve this. Compared to the things they had faced before—murderous automata, Revenants, rogue agents, serial killers, ghostly reincarnations—this was nothing. If they worked together, they could get Newbury back on track. It would be hard work, but they could do it.

  Veronica consoled herself with the knowledge that their plan was already beginning to work—to some extent, at least, though it was clear that Newbury was beginning to suffer withdrawal symptoms: the tiredness, the sweating, the way his hand had trembled as he took his teacup from Mrs. Grant. She knew it was going to get worse. Much worse. This withdrawal was likely to cause more than the obvious physical symptoms. Newbury had come to rely on the drug, and eliminating that reliance would play havoc with his m
ind. Self-doubt, self-pity—all of this was to come. He honestly believed that the drug was what provided him with his insight, that without it, he’d be only a shadow of his former self. He saw it as a necessary evil, but it was time for that to stop.

  Veronica turned her head and listened intently for a moment. Yes, she was right—she’d heard something clatter on the stairs. There it was again, that tap-tap-tap—the sound of metal repeatedly striking wood.

  Intrigued, she crossed to the drawing room door. “Mrs. Grant, is that you?” she called out as she reached for the handle. She was just about to turn it when there was an almighty bang and the door shuddered in its frame. Veronica leapt back, unable to prevent herself from issuing a startled shout. Something scratched at the wooden panel.

  Newbury was up and awake in seconds. He sprang out of the chair, dashing to her side, poised and ready for a fight. “Are you alright?”

  “Yes, I’m alright. I just—” She stopped midsentence as the door began to shake. The shaking was accompanied by a high-pitched whining sound, the sound of blades burrowing through wood at high speed.

  “Get back,” Newbury warned her, and she did exactly as he said. He rushed over to the fireplace and grabbed a poker out of the grate. Then he ran back towards the door, standing ready, waiting for whatever it was on the other side to break through.

  Veronica knew it must be the spider. It had to be. But did that mean Edwin Sykes was here, too, lurking somewhere in the background? And what had happened to Mrs. Grant?

  “Here it comes!” Newbury bellowed as the wooden plug popped out of the door and a balled-up metal object came barrelling through. It hit the ground and rolled across the carpet, coming to rest upon the red Turkish rug in the centre of the room. Veronica moved swiftly to put a chair between herself and the strange mechanical monster.

  Slowly, the thing unfurled, its eight spiky legs opening like a brass flower, before the leg joints inverted and raised its shining body off the ground. Four red lights glowed like multifaceted rubies at intervals around its circumference. The machine was the size of a small dog.

  Veronica searched for something she could use to defend herself. There were more pokers in the grate, but the spider was now between her and the fireplace. It made a clicking sound, then scuttled away beneath the chair that Newbury had been dozing in.

  “Where has it gone?” he asked as he cautiously crept farther into the room, wielding the poker like a spear.

  “Careful, Maurice,” she said, lapsing into the familiar address. “It’s beneath that chair.”

  Newbury dropped to one knee, trying to get a view beneath the seat. “I can’t see it there,” he said.

  “We can’t have lost it!”

  “No, it’s just found a pla—” He was cut off by Veronica’s panicked scream as she saw the thing appear around the top of the armchair and launch itself through the air at Newbury. He swung round just in time to raise the poker and bat it away with a resounding clunk. He dropped the poker and cursed in pain as the spider, bouncing off the wall, fell to the floor, curled itself into a ball, and rolled beneath the sideboard.

  Veronica dashed over to Newbury. “Are you alright?”

  Newbury nodded, rubbing his hands. “Yes, I’m fine. I simply jarred my hands with the impact.”

  “Do you think you got it?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. It hit the wall with quite a force. Where did it go?”

  “Under there.” She pointed towards the sideboard.

  “Stay back. I’ll take a look.” He recovered the poker and approached the sideboard warily.

  “Can you hear anything?”

  “No. Can you?”

  “Nothing. It’s like it’s stopped moving.”

  Newbury lowered himself to the ground, keeping the poker between himself and the sideboard at all times. He peered into the shadowy aperture. “I can see it,” he said, the relief evident in his voice. “It’s curled up into a ball and isn’t moving. I’d say that’s a good sign.” He looked up at Veronica, who was standing over him. “I’ll try to fish it out with the poker.”

  Cautiously, Newbury extended his arm and used the end of the iron poker to prod the mechanical creature.

  “I think we’re in the clear,” he said. “The lights have gone out and it’s not moving.”

  Veronica watched, fascinated, as he slowly withdrew the poker. Balanced on the end of it, hooked by the now-rigid legs, was the spider thing, replete in all its brass glory.

  Newbury dropped it on the floor a couple of feet from him and placed the poker on the carpet beside it. “Charles’s eyewitness reports don’t begin to do it justice,” he said with admiration. “Just look at it! What a remarkable device.”

  Veronica eyed the thing warily. It was grotesque. She couldn’t understand why Newbury was so enamoured with it. Its bulbous body, its eight spiny legs, the bladelike protrusions embedded in its belly—it was a creature from a child’s nightmare, not something to be admired and fawned over as a technological marvel. It was clever, of course, but everything about it made her skin crawl, from its purpose to its appearance.

  Perhaps, also, it was the way it had moved, scurrying around on the floor and then propelling itself through the air like a pouncing cat. If one were caught unawares, it would have proved absolutely deadly. She’d been fortuitous to have Newbury there when she needed him.

  “What are we going to do with it?” she said, unsure of their options.

  “Bag it up and take it to Charles. This is clear evidence that Sykes is still active. Or at least someone pretending to be Sykes, with access to all of his equipment.”

  “Oh my God! Sykes! Mrs. Grant!” She ran to the door, flung it open, and hurtled down the stairs to the basement. “Mrs. Grant? Mrs. Grant?”

  “Yes, miss? Whatever is the matter, miss?”

  Veronica almost collapsed against the doorframe when she saw the elderly housekeeper standing in the kitchen, a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon in her hands, a look of concern writ large on her face.

  Veronica heaved a sigh of relief. “Oh, Mrs. Grant. I thought you might have been in trouble.”

  Mrs. Grant’s face cracked into a wide smile. “Oh, miss, why ever would you imagine such a thing?”

  The question was answered by a loud bang from upstairs, the sound of something—or someone—being knocked to the floorboards. Veronica hurtled back up the stairs, two at a time. She threw herself across the small landing, catching the doorframe and swinging herself into the drawing room.

  Inside, Newbury was stumbling backwards towards the window, his hands up near his face, trying desperately to hold the spider thing at bay. Its legs were clawing at his head, and the flashing blades in its belly were whirring dangerously close to his face. It was attempting to burrow into him, just as it had burrowed through the wooden door.

  Veronica scanned the floor for the poker. It was still lying where Newbury had left it. She grabbed for it, rushing over to him, and lashed out at the metal beast with all her might.

  The poker rebounded painfully in her hands, but the shell of the machine seemed barely marked by the impact, and the blades continued to spin and burr. Newbury was bleeding from innumerable scratches caused by the sharp tips of the spider’s legs as it flayed and grappled with him, intent on finding enough purchase to pull itself in for the kill.

  Newbury’s breath came in short, sharp gasps. “Help … me … get … it … off!”

  Veronica dropped the poker and grabbed at the spider’s legs, trying to prise them away from Newbury’s head. Two of them snapped back, the joints inverting so that the legs could stab at her hands and wrists. She pressed on, grabbing for more legs, ignoring the sharp pain that blossomed every time the machine managed to open up another gash in her forearms. Two more legs snapped back, directing their attacks towards her. Now she really was in trouble. She gave up on the legs and groped for the body instead, careful to keep her fingertips clear of the spinning blades. She felt the mechanisms
within the machine humming, the clicking of the clockwork components inside: the mechanical brain.

  She wrenched at it, tugging with all her might. To her surprise, it let go of Newbury and she stumbled backwards, tripping on the rug and sprawling onto her back. The thing squirmed in her grasp, manoeuvring itself about so that the body could pivot on the legs. She realised with horror that there was another set of blades on its back, and these were now extending towards her, spinning and howling with a startling ferocity. She tried to shout for Newbury, but she could hardly breathe.

  Then she felt, more than saw, Newbury standing over her, casting her in his long shadow. He had a blanket in his hands from the chaise longue, and he threw it over the spider, bundling it up in the folds of the fabric to momentarily protect them from the blades. Then he grabbed the whole bundle and pulled it off Veronica, slamming it down hard on the floor. “Here! Grab the edge of the blanket!”

  Veronica, gasping for breath, rolled onto her side and pinned the blanket to the floor. The spider was twisting and struggling in the folds of the thick fabric, its legs caught and unable to find purchase. She heard the sounds of the blades starting up again.

  “It’s going to try to go down through the floor!” Newbury shouted. “Hold it still!”

  He fished for the poker, just off to his left, keeping his side of the blanket pinned down with his other hand. Then, on his knees, he grabbed the poker with both hands, raised it above his head, and thrust it down, point first, into the writhing mass of fabric and metal.

  The sound was tremendous. The poker speared the mechanical beast right through its body, the metal rod shearing through the brass plating, smashing through the delicate mechanisms inside it, and pinning it, still twitching, to the floorboards. Sparks spat and hissed, and the blanket began to smoulder. Then the whirring blades came to an abrupt halt.

  Newbury fell back, exhausted. Still on his knees, he looked over at Veronica. “Are you hurt?”