Clockwork Killer (Steampunk Detectives: Book 1)

by Hall, Ian

  I tensed, the memory flooding back. I patted my pocket, knowing my notes still lay there, folded, fraying at the edges, the pencil marks fading.

  “That’s it, son.” He said animatedly. “What’s going through your mind, right now! That’s what I need.”

  I welcomed his aggression and passion for the case details, here at last was a man I could decant all my notes to. Here stood a man who seemed to understand what law-making meant.

  I walked to the orchard that morning and poured the whole story to Detective Paul Chapman. As I pruned the dead wood on the trees, I told him every detail I remembered, and there was a lot. The tears fell down my cheeks like a waterfall, but I set myself to sawing as I spoke, and he wrote plenty of my words down in his notebook, and that encouraged me. At last something seemed to be getting done.

  When I was done, he stepped forward and embraced me. I stood for a second, not quite knowing what to do with my hands, then I put them softly on his back.

  “You did well Francis.” Chapman stood back, looking at my notes. Then he repeated them to me, asking if I remembered any other details.

  When I replied to the negative, he then flipped the notebook to the first page.

  “Taylor County, Wisconsin, 16th October, 1874. The murder of Annabel Joyce, aged 18 years.” He looked up at me, not needing to read the next part. “Death by a lethal cut to the neck. A sword. The husband, Tom Joyce had been tethered to a chair to watch.”

  We shared a look between us, then he bent to the notebook again, turning the page. “Decatur, Macon County, Illinois, 18th March, 1875. Just along the road really. The murder of Grizzell Wallace, aged seventeen years.” He turned the page once more, but spoke from memory. “Then on 21st September, back up to Wisconsin, last year. Christine Bismark, aged eighteen. All killed the same way.”

  He paused, and I knew that details of my sister’s demise rested on the next page. Now just a collection of facts, details to solve the crime. “Then my sister.” I said. In my mind I saw all of these poor girls, witnessed all their choked screams, and felt for their families.

  “Then your sister, Rebekah.” He folded the notebook closed.

  “There’s a pattern.” I said, my mind still hurting.

  “Young girls,” Chapman said. “All newly married.”

  I looked up at him. “No, not that; the dates, all roughly six months apart.”

  He looked at me quizzically, then checked his dates again. “No, five months between the first two.”

  “But that could just be ascribed to a delay by winter or summer weather.” I tried to remember if the harvest had been early last year. “A change in harvest time, perhaps he’s a seasonal worker.”

  Chapman’s look could only be described as incredulous. “So we have to work out what he’s following; what crop?”

  “It could be any, or none.” I said. “Maybe he’s following the heat. I suspect he holds up somewhere for winter.”

  “In Wisconsin?”

  I shook my head. “No, he kills on the way north in the spring.” I suddenly remembered an article in one of my papers. “Have you got any fingerprints yet?”

  “Fingerprints?” his look challenged me.

  “Come,” I strode confidently for the summer house, and once inside began to leaf through the scientific journals sent to me by subscription. I looked up to speak, only to be met by the most curious stare from Chapman. “What is this place?”

  “This place?” he spun slowly, his eyes alighting on many or my experiments, my bell jar batteries. “What is it?” He wandered over to my motor, still spinning.

  “It’s our summer house.” I said somewhat glibly.

  He looked up from the Jedlik motor. “How does this move?”

  “It’s run by a current from the battery.” I looked at the spinning arms with pride. “It’s been spinning for weeks.”

  “Will it go forever?” Chapman asked.

  “No, the current drawn from the battery will eventually fade.”

  He shook his head, and crossed to one rack of batteries; large glass jars with electrodes jammed into round cork stoppers. “What are these?”

  “That’s my battery stack,” I replied. “I’m currently linking them to this small piano.” I moved to let him see. “As I play the piano keys, different sounds are played over on the other side of the room. It’s a kind of telegraph, but I don’t use Morse code. I’ve went beyond that. I can get letters without dots and dashes.”

  He shook his head. “What use would it be?”

  “Well, we could type letters and numbers instead of Morse code. There’d be no need to train operators, we all could do it.”

  “That’s quite an idea.” He seemed impressed.

  “But of course, every letter would need its own wire, so solving the practical side is beyond me right now.” I leafed through my journals looking for the right article.

  “But you’re just a kid.” Chapman looked at me through squinting eyes.

  Ignoring his remark I found the sheet with the fingerprint article. “All Fingerprints are Unique.” I read.

  “I think I know that.” Chapman said, “But we have no way of getting them from any surface except glass.”

  And my subsequent explanation of the method for the ‘lifting’ of fingerprints from other surfaces led him to taking many more notes.

  Only after the detective had left did I reconsider the first date; October 1874; before the end of the war, yet he’d dressed as a Johnny Reb.

  “That makes him a deserter,” I said into the empty room.

  I grabbed some sheets of writing paper, and hoped my ideas would reach Paul Chapman in Chicago.

  Paul Chapman, Pinkerton National Detective Agency, 6th Street, Chicago

  22nd October, 1865 (Six months before)

  As I rode back down into Chicago from Wisconsin, I had far more information than I’d left with. Gordon Bismarck, Christine’s father, had been initially unwilling to spill the details of his daughter’s murder so close to her funeral, but a bottle of bourbon had loosened his tongue.

  At last I had a motive, and although it was shrouded in sexual deviance, it certainly gave me far more to write in my notebook, and gave me a far better picture of the crimes.

  Our suspect had been dressed as a southern officer, and he had masturbated onto the victim before slicing the throat. That was a significant element in the murders. The page dedicated to the Bismarck crime had filled with details. According to the funeral director, the sword had sliced the throat in one movement, indicating a great degree of sharpness of the blade. We looked for a kind of rapist, a man who liked to defile young women in front of a tied and helpless audience, a man who enjoyed power over the helpless.

  I strode into the Pinkerton building with resolve, feeling very smug at my new revelations.

  But as I presented my findings to the ‘Boss’, he seemed distant.

  “There’s money to be made, Paul.” He said at length, supposedly not having heard my report. “The railroads will expand civilization upon this land, but it will distribute crime as it grows.” He tapped on my notebook. “We must strive to stay one move ahead of the criminal, Paul. Although we think of ourselves at the Pinkerton National Detective Agency at the cutting edge of catching criminals, we are yet at the dinosaur age of such an art. Soon we’ll have a national base of information, accessible by telegraph from anywhere in the country.”

  I’d heard such rantings before, as we shared a bottle or two in tents, guarding Lincoln, but it had been rare for Pinkerton to give rise to his innermost fantasies lately. To my mind, the end of the war had changed Allan Pinkerton; he now had a payroll to cover, and no easy army banknotes to pay it with. He needed backers for his schemes, and the railroads were now the companies with money to spend. Huge contracts were being given every week, the war was over, and the railroads promised to expand to every part of the nation.

  “I must get down to Decatur to verify the details there.” I said, collecting
my notebook as it was pushed across the desk to me. “And I need to make it quick; winter comes early this year, I can feel it in my bones.”

  “Aye,” The single word hung heavy in the air, full of Scottish accent, and I sensed the lack of interest in his tone. I made my way out of the office, and spent a day in my own digs.

  My own bed. No horse under me. Good restaurant food.

  I awoke the next morning to a hammering at my door. On opening it, I saw Henderson, a farrier for the company, standing with a letter. He dismissed himself as soon as he’d handed it over.

  Paul,

  I have a new assignment for you.

  Present yourself at your convenience.

  AP

  I dressed, grabbed a slice of bread and cheese, and made for the office.

  “Paul,” Pinkerton began slowly. “I have always considered you to be the brightest of my detectives.” I sat in front of his desk and reeled under the revelation. “Partly for this reason, and partly because of your expertise in the homicide department, I have decided to send you to school.”

  “What?” I gasped. “I’m thirty-six years old!”

  I stopped my diatribe as Pinkerton doubled over the desk in mirth, laughing so hard he had to hold his sides. He eventually held his hand up, tears rolling down his cheeks into his huge beard.

  “Forgive me, Paul, I couldn’t contain myself. A wee joke o’ mine, sorry you were the butt of it.” He sniffed loudly. “You know that I’m a benefactor o’ the Northwest University, here in Chicago?”

  “Yes, Mister Pinkerton.” I knew that he’d donated money to the Evanston project for quite some time, and had often mentioned it.

  “Well, I have often thought that Chicago’s own University should have a law department, especially since the country’s largest detective agency is in town.” He seemed to gather himself, his face now quite serious. “Harvard has a law department, although they limit their students to those who want to practice law as solicitors, barristers or lawyers. It has often been my belief that we detectives should have a far better grounding in law, and I have strived to bring such to bear on Northwest.”

  “But my men can’t just learn law. As the railroad spreads crime to every corner of the country, there is a need for my detectives to know everything that pertains to the criminal, their crimes, and the process of the crime’s detection. I have plans for the next ten years, and intend in 1870 to have such a class at Northwest University in Chicago. All my detectives will move through the class, and I want you to become part of the ground-roots set-up. I need the class to not only teach the basics of law, but concentrate on the up-to-date developments in as many facets of crime detection as we can identify are helpful. I need the class to be at the cutting edge of technological progress, including the most modern advances in the field. Things we haven’t even thought about; sociology, psychology, phrenology, forensics. I don’t want to miss out on anything. If any science has an application to detective work, then it becomes part of the class.”

  He looked across at me, and knowing the man so well, I knew the axe was about to fall.

  “Paul, I do not intend to send you to school to learn law; that would take more years than you’re willing to serve and more than I’m willing to wait. But I do need you to bring together the individual studies that form the core of criminology; basically I need you to build the first university course that teaches criminology as a science. And I’m giving you four years to do it.”

  I felt totally overcome by the direction the conversation had taken, and sat for a moment in silence. “Does this mean I’m not on cases anymore?”

  Pinkerton shook his head. “No, this won’t take all your time, but it will draw you away from some of your detective work. For instance, this year you’ll winter in Harvard, picking from the archives there; just remember you’re building a university course. You’ll work independently, but I’d want regular reports of your progress.”

  He paused, leaning forward onto his elbows, his beady eyes boring into mine. “What do you think? Are you up to it?”

  It took a few seconds for the weight of the task to settle. I would study criminology, and build a course fit to be taught to our detectives. “I think so, sir.”

  Pinkerton leant forward and stuck out his hand. “One and a half times your salary, the instant you agree.”

  That did it. I shook his hand firmly and long, both grinning like Cheshire cats. “Winter in Massachusetts, huh?”

  “Building the first University course in criminology,” Pinkerton looked triumphant.

  So the sword-through-the-neck case got dumped to the sidelines, and I set off to the east coast, and the town of Cambridge for a winter of sitting in cold Harvard libraries, copying documents and making lots of notes.

  The more I dug into the science of criminology, the more it splintered into other connected subjects. Each facet called for a new page in a new notebook, and as winter progressed, each notebook page soon grew into a folder of its own.

  I wrote a letter to Allan Pinkerton every month, detailing both my work and my out-of-pocket expenses, to which I never got a reply.

  A regular a visitor to the law libraries, I welcomed 1866 in a small staff party in the University, then as January opened the doors to a new year, I got back into my studies. January folded into a very snowy February, and I began to get anxious to get back on the road, but the roads were impassable, even the railroads having difficulties. So my folders got bigger, and with every entry the span of my knowledge increased.

  By the end of March the weather had cleared, and I took the train back to Chicago.

  Once again, Allan Pinkerton was absent, on a railway trip of his own, so I left my new folders on a pile on my desk, and rode south to Decatur.

  This time I had questions to ask that led to specific answers.

  Grizzell’s husband, Walter, looked a quiet nervous man, wiry thin and about thirty. He told me immediately that he felt he’d been under suspicion from the local sheriff since he’d reported the murder, a year ago.

  “I don’t suspect you, sir.” I said in my most sincere tone, indicating that he sit down. “Your young wife is the third such murder I have investigated.”

  My questions went easier from that exchange.

  Like the others, Grizzell Wallace had blonde, fair hair, Walter had been tied up, the killer had been dressed as a southern officer, with the proper accent, and he’d been very vocal.

  Under some pressure, Walter admitted that his wife had been molested, and yes he’d masturbated and ejaculated over the victim.

  Sword slice, and gone.

  I rode back to Chicago weary from my travels, disappointed that we’d learned nothing new, but happy that we’d established a pattern to our man, and that meant we’d got a leg up to finding him. As I rode north into town, I began looking at the color of the bedrolls of the men I passed, looking for tell-tale confederate grey. The man would never wear his southern outfit in daylight; in Illinois he’d be run out of town on a rail. So the coat had to be in his baggage. But it would be more difficult to conceal the sword.

  The man had done exactly the same thing in the last two of the murder cases, and probably had done in the first. He was a man of habit, and habits meant repetitive patterns, and patterns were his weakness. As long as he maintained his level of depravity, we had a good chance of catching the son-of-a-bitch.

  In jubilant mood, I rode directly to the office, dismounted and led my horse into the company stables.

  Charles Henderson met me at the wide barn doorway, taking the reins. “Everybody’s got word that you’ve to report immediately on arrival.” He said, his face a grim mask. “Immediately.”

  I rushed upstairs to the office, but to my dismay it was deserted. Even Missus Bainbridge had left for the day.

  I knocked on the boss’s door, and got a loud ‘come in’.

  “Paul!” Pinkerton rose from behind his desk, and grabbed a piece of paper. “New murder.” He brandished
it firmly, stalking round the desk. “Just four days old.”

  “Where?” I asked, finding his excitement infectious.

  He looked at the note. “Sangamon County. Down near Springfield.”

  I sighed. Springfield was less than fifty miles from Decatur.

  “Dammit.” I said, exasperation building within me. Allan Pinkerton looked up at me with a curious expression. “I was down there three days ago, sir. I just missed him.”

  New Pistol, New Calling

  Francis Smalling, Springfield, Sangamon County, Illinois

  April 30th 1866

  As I rode into town to get my mail, I had to admit I’d been quite taken by the Pinkerton detective, Paul Chapman. While he’d been way behind me in the newest advances in science, he had demonstrated a grounded knowledge, and listened well.

  At last, with the extensive case notes he’d gotten from me, I felt like we’d advanced along the road of getting my sister’s murderer caught. And that made me feel good. I nodded to people on the road, and saw their guarded stares. I wondered when the ‘new’ would wear from my status as the wimp that got tied up and watched his sister die.

  My Post Office box was quite crammed with communications, and as I stood on the porch, leaning backwards on the wall, I leafed through journals from around America, France and England. Individual letters from Holland and London made me feel guilty of not writing replies to the ones already back home. I resigned myself to do so soon.

  “Young Smalling?”

  A voice broke me from my reverie, and I pushed myself from the wall, looking blankly around. “Yes?” Missus Crenshaw, a family friend stood at the Post Office door.

  “May I enquire to the health of your mother?”

  “She’s getting over it all, Missus Crenshaw,” I replied, giving the right condescending smile. Yes, we were all getting over it, but in our own ways and in our own time frame. I don’t think Margaret had set one foot outside the house since that night, but of course I wasn’t about to tell her that gem.

  “I’ll pop over next week,” she smiled coldly. “I’ll bring some pancakes.”