Clockwork Killer (Steampunk Detectives: Book 1)

by Hall, Ian

  “North side, Mister Smalling,” he smiled, taking his Stetson off to wipe his brow. The sun had already well crested the horizon, and he had raised a fair sweat. “New type too; MacDonald Red, cider apple from Ireland, I think.”

  He’d called me ‘Mister Smalling’, perhaps for the first time, but definitely the first time I’d actually taken notice. “Do you need a hand?” I hoped he’d say no, as cider apples had suddenly gotten kinda boring.

  “Nah, it’s fine.” He pointed to Margaret at my side. “Young Maggie and I cleared the bank last week, dug holes ready for them. We’re all set.”

  Maggie? I turned to my sister who, for some reason, had reddened. Suddenly a penny dropped. “You and David Grantham?” I asked, lowering my head to hers in mock derision.

  To my complete surprise, she grinned broadly, then covered her face with her hands, and ran inside. I watched her with my eyes wide open and a slack jaw. “My sister,” I said out loud, then looked at the retreating figure of David, our foreman. “And David Grantham. Well I never.”

  “Well you never what?” Emily said from the porch.

  “Nothing,” I turned, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Just looks like sister Margaret may have a little romance in her life.” I thumbed over my shoulder.

  “What’s on the cards for us today?” she asked, craning her neck to view David.

  “Oh, I thought we’d potter in the summer house.”

  She nodded. “That sounds enjoyable, although I have an idea I want to work on.”

  “Oh yeah, what’s that?”

  “Well, it’s maybe locking the stable door once the horse has bolted, but it’s an idea for a chair, that if you rock it, it cuts bindings.”

  “How would it do that?” I asked leaning on the porch rail, looking up into her delightfully blue eyes.

  “We’d engineer blades and a cantilever system of rods in hollow legs and arms.”

  She showed me a rough sketch and seemed to have worked the idea out. “And if a person was, say, tied up on this chair, they’d just rock back and forth to cut their bonds.”

  “That sounds about right.” She said. “Know any good carpenters?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  It took a quick ride into town with the plans neatly drawn by Miss Hettinger’s pretty hand to get it all started, and within a week, three chairs were delivered to the farm. And we’d not been idle either. With linkage rods bent round the point of the anvil, and a return spring to give it some traction, we assembled the blades into the hollow legs.

  “All we need to do is tie someone up, and see if it works.” I stood back from our contraption. I rocked it back and forth, and blades slipped out from under each arm and behind the front legs, sawing into the air.

  With some trepidation, I allowed myself to be tied to the chair, showing Emily the neat knots Whitehouse used. Soon I sat, quite bound up. “I can’t move a muscle.” I tried to twist the bonds, but they held firm.

  “So, start rocking.” Emily said, her hands hiding most of her expression from me.

  Using only my body weight, I pushed up from my toes, rocking backwards on the back legs, then forward. Once, twice, five times in all, and broke my hands free, the rope in small pieces, all neatly sliced.

  “It works!” I jumped free from the chair, and strode to Emily, who also smiled in joy. I kissed her in celebration, but somehow our lips lingered, then her tongue broke free and touched mine.

  Looking deep into her eyes, I kissed my Emily properly for the very first time. I gasped into her mouth, and we dragged air from each other as we continued our embrace. Her lips were as soft and yet I pushed my face into hers as if I tried to bite them off completely.

  “Excuse me,” I jumped at Margaret’s voice, suddenly echoing round the room. For a moment we stood, both looking at my sister’s stern stare. Then the sides of her mouth relaxed, and she broke into a smile. “So this is what you’re been doing over the last week or so.”

  “No!” I said, quickly standing to one side. “We’ve invented a chair to defeat Whiteman.” And of course, trying hard to divert her mind from us being caught, we had to demonstrate it again. Then both the girls wanted tied up too. The somber, sobering aspect seemed temporarily lost on them both, but they broke free as easily as I had done. “We’ve got three. We’ll cover the workings with brown paper and shellac varnish, so anyone who didn’t know, wouldn’t suspect anything untoward.

  When we all stood admiring our workmanship, Margaret took us both by the hand. “Seriously though, if you two want to stay here, under mum’s roof, so to speak, you’d better get some kind of permanence in your relationship.”

  Oh boy. That one hit me hard. I looked at Emily, and for once her humor seemed to have deserted her. She looked at me, her pupils shrunken, her face drained of color. “Who do I ask first?” I said after an eternity.

  “Ask what?”

  I knew both her parents had died, but I didn’t actually know if she stood under the legal guardianship of her uncle or not. “Your Uncle.” I said. “Do I ask his permission or not?”

  “Before doing what?”

  I could see the beginnings of a smile, so I pressed further. “Well, do I ask his permission to ask you? Or do I ask your permission to ask him? Or do I just ask you?”

  “Ask what, Francis?” she placed her fists on her hips, and looked pretty threatening.

  “Damn it,” I fell to my knees on the hard earthen floor. The girls both stepped away from me, both shocked at my actions. “Emily Hettinger, I cannot foresee my life without you, so I ask you to join with me. Will you be my wife?”

  Margaret shook, looking from Emily to me, then back. “Oh bloody hell.” She said, her hands covering the shock on most of her face.

  “Will you promise not to be a detective?” Emily asked, tears welling up in her eyes.

  “I promise!” I said, quite loudly. “We’ll study science! We’ll travel the world inventing things!” then I stopped, seeing she was now weeping openly, tears running over her fingers, but her head seemed to be nodding.

  Then as she stepped closer, the nods became more pronounced, and she took her hands from her face, and felt forwards for mine. “Yes, Francis Smalling, you’d better contact my Uncle, because he’s going to attend a wedding damnably soon.”

  So that set another cat loose in the farm; organizing a wedding when both parties’ families were so far distant didn’t turn out to be an easy task. I mean, I’d been brought up here on the farm, and yet only two other people from the farm would be in attendance. Mother had not improved, in fact she’d taken many turns for the worse and been admitted to the new State Mental Hospital in Jacksonville. The doctors there feared she’d never be well again.

  Plans were laid for Emily and I to travel back to Harvard, and sort out the wedding particulars, sister Margaret and David would travel east when we’d set a date.

  I spent most of the week in total upheaval, my mind reeling with the fact that we’d soon be married, and I’d spend the rest of my life with my beloved Emily.

  Then one afternoon, as we returned to the farmhouse from a walk through the orchard, I called for Marsha, and my call was answered by complete silence.

  “That’s strange,” I said, stepping through the kitchen, into the main room. I turned round to make a ‘I-don’t-know-where-she-is’ gesture to see Emily in the doorway, her neck held firmly with a tanned forearm. A pistol was levelled firmly at her head, and a grinning Frederick Whiteman peered over her shoulder.

  Click. He cocked the pistol. “One move, puppy-dog,” he sneered, “and her brain gets splashed all over the wall.”

  I froze.

  Keeping his gun firmly lodged at her temple, he produced a large handkerchief, and placed it under her frightened eyes, covering her nose and mouth. I watched in helplessness as her eyes closed, and she relaxed in his grip, pushed against the doorframe. Then the handkerchief had gone and he bent down, pulling her skirts up, his hands rummaging high
on her milky white thighs, touching her.

  Touching her.

  I shook with so much anger that I could hardly keep myself in place. I twitched, I bit my lip, I trembled. Yet that gun never wavered from its position. For all he moved her, for all he forced his hand between her legs, the gun never wavered. And thus I stood powerless.

  Grinning wide, obviously finding the object of his search, he moved his hand at her sex, then brought the fingers to his nose. “Ah,” he said with some surprise. “You two have been very good.” He shook his head, a smirk of incredulity thrown across the room at me. “You haven’t been down there, my dear Smalling? You haven’t sampled her nectar yet?”

  I made a decision to draw, but he must have seen some ‘tell’ from me, and he tensed, letting Emily drop slowly to the floor, his pistol now levelled at me. “Now I wouldn’t do that, young Smalling.” He crossed the room, limping heavily, his gun sights never leaving my chest. I grinned, knowing that my rifle bullet had caused him so much discomfort. Soon, he stood just feet away. He tossed me the white rag, and as I caught it, I smelled the familiar odors. “Hold it to your nose, or I’ll put a slug in your gut, and you’ll never live to touch her like I have.”

  “You bastard,” I said through firmly clenched teeth. “You’ll bloody hang for this!”

  “Oh, I don’t think so, young Smalling; I’m going to have the time of my life.”

  I shoved the cloth under my nose and onto my mouth, yet refused to breathe in. For ten seconds I watched him, my lungs empty. Twenty. Thirty.

  “You are a plucky lad, aren’t you?” he sneered, then stepped quickly forward, punching my belly so hard I gasped. It was the last I knew.

  Francis Smalling, Smalling Apple Farm, Sangamon County, Illinois

  May 31st, 1867

  For the second time in my life, I woke from a chloroform induced sleep. Gagged. Drowsy. Tied up.

  The sun had set and the bedroom lay dark, the three lanterns placed exactly the same as a year before.

  I looked across the room. A bound female form lay spread-eagled on the bed, but my eyes wouldn’t focus enough to make out much more. I flashed my gaze to one side. Nothing. Then to my right; Emily, similarly gagged, bound to a chair, her head hanging low on her chest.

  As I gazed at her, my eyes slowly lowered to her body, I realized she had been stripped naked.

  “Ah, welcome, young Smalling,” Whiteman limped across the room in front of me, and I saw the gun in his hand. “Nice of you to join us,”

  “Go to hell,” I said against the gag, but of course, not much came out. With his bald head, and no coat, he looked far less intimidating than he’d done a year ago. He even looked inches shorter.

  Thankfully my eyes quickly cleared, but to my dismay, it allowed me to see sister Margaret on the bed, totally naked, her arms bound above her head, her legs pulled wide.

  I hung my head, but as I did so, I became aware of my own nakedness, and my inability to do nothing about the rising erection in my lap.

  I panted into the gag, trying to bring my breathing under control.

  I had to think like a scientist. I looked at Emily’s chair; finding it not one of the modified ones. Then looked at my own, giving thanks to God that I had been bound in one of the rope-cutting chairs. But of course, it didn’t do any good right then, as he held the advantage of the pistol.

  I set my plan firmly in my mind; rock the chair, cut the bonds, reach under the chair for the gun we’d taped there.

  Rock, cut, reach, gun.

  Why had he stripped us all? I tried hard to see the object of it, thinking it may just be an escalation of his ruse. I couldn’t help hope that he chose to only repeat his first visit to the house. I determined that the instant he holstered the gun to use the sword, or to grab at his pecker, I would start rocking the chair.

  Whiteman paced back and forward, touching the women with the business end of his gun. He nudged Emily’s breasts, then crossed to the bed to Margaret, and positioned it between her legs. “You’ve been a good boy, Smalling, keeping your hands off your sweetheart.” He turned to me, brandishing the colt like a tomahawk. Then he reached with his free hand to slap Emily’s face, trying to bring her round. “Don’t know how you did it though,” he again nudged her breast with the gun’s barrel. To my dismay, she stirred, raising her head groggily. “She’s the nicest I’ve seen in a while. She’ll be a pleasure to take for the first time. Pity it won’t be you, Smalling.” He cupped her breast in his hand, and I swore under my gagged breath that he’d pay handsomely for his fleeting pleasure.

  I looked into his dark eyes, and prayed for the moment he holstered the gun.

  Seemingly unwilling to wait for Margaret to wake, he took a glass of water, and spilled it onto her face, dribbling the rest across her chest and stomach. Again, I tried to censor my sister’s body from my gaze, but then held my resolve firm. I had to be the one in control.

  “Ah, Margaret, so glad you could join us.” Whiteman sneered as she opened her eyes. “Especially since you will be the first act of tonight’s play.” He forced his hand between her legs, sending her reeling in shock, not quite up to speed with the situation. “You see, young Smalling, your sister has not been as discreet with her own sexual meanderings.” He held his fingers to his nose, then crossing the room, to mine. “It seems the ranch hand has already ploughed this furrow often enough in the last year, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Margaret shook her head, but her eyes held mine in the lamplight, and I could see the shame in her gaze. Obviously Whiteman had been watching my sister a damn sight better than I had.

  But he still held the gun.

  He crossed to the bed, and I chanced a glance at Emily. To my dismay, her eyes were focused on my lap. Or should I say, what stood firmly out into the room.

  Okay, so now I had another emotion to push down into myself to keep control of the current situation; my own shame.

  “You have such pretty breasts, Margaret.” He caressed her, holding the gun across her stomach. “Your beau thinks so too, doesn’t he? He likes you to show them off in the sunlight, while he roots away here!” he pointed the gun at her sex.

  Then he reached down to his side, and brought out the sword.

  Just like our eldest sister a year ago. Margaret flinched away as far as her bonds would allow, but Whiteman didn’t react. He held the sword at her neck. “Do you remember your sister?”

  Margaret looked terrified now, she remembered all right, she’d seen the show that night, and now knew that she would be defiled, then beheaded. She stared across at me her eyes going to the chair, her whole demeanor imploring me to rock my chair.

  Then Whiteman holstered the gun.

  My heart stopped beating.

  And yet, in the midst of such barbarity, my plan changed. I steeled myself, knowing that even if I rocked the chair, and got under the seat for the pistol, he might get a chance to kill her with the sword.

  I instantly knew that I had to wait. I had to have faith in the fact that he’d worked to a pattern up to now, and he wasn’t going to change.

  Apart from the naked thing; that was different, and that gave me a small element of doubt.

  “You’re going to be good for me, aren’t you, dear Margaret?” Whiteman leant over, kissing her nearest nipple, then taking it into his mouth, sucking, then biting. Margaret, to her due, railed against her bonds like Rebekah never had, she moaned into the gag, obviously shouting obscenities at him. “Hmm, maybe I’ll just leave the gag on huh?”

  And he began to unbutton his trousers.

  I watched, as time slowed down slightly. His fingers picked over the buttons, one at a time, until he reached inside his trousers and pulled out his hardened penis.

  “You’re a fine young woman, Margaret.”

  I forced myself to breathe slowly. Not risking a sideways look at Emily, I watched the man’s right hand, still holding onto the sword.

  “I watched the farm hand take you so hard.”

&n
bsp; I know that he reached between her legs, but I focused on the sword’s grip.

  “You liked it, when he took you hard, didn’t you?” he sneered to her face. “I watched. The more he got rough, the more you liked it!”

  I know that he began to fondle her. I know that he actually began to molest her. But I focused on the hand that held the sword.

  Then at last he relaxed his grip, and moved his right hand to his pecker.

  I grinned so big, I’m glad the gag was there to hide it.

  Pushing with my toes I immediately rocked the chair back, then brought it forward. Thump on the floor.

  “See, even Francis wants some.” Whiteman sneered, his hands both now moving in rhythm.

  Thump, again on the floor, keeping the rocking steady, I couldn’t afford to fall over.

  I watched his face, his grin.

  Thump, I strained my arms, and felt some release.

  He closed his eyes, obviously enjoying himself.

  Thump, I pulled my wrists upwards, and they released significantly, but the last loop seemed to hold.

  I rocked again, and saw Whiteman look across the room at me. There seemed to be a bemused look on his face, but he obviously had most of his attention elsewhere.

  Thump, and both arms broke free.

  I almost screamed in joy.

  Then a gigantic feeling of doubt flooded me, as I seen Whiteman grin at me. As I raised my hands from the arms of the chair, the rope falling in small, cut pieces, he actually grinned at me.

  In dismay I reached for the gun that I knew he’d already found, my hand scrambling under the chair, hopelessly searching for the gun he’d discovered, always one step in front of us all.

  Then to my surprise my hand found my pistol grip.

  I grabbed it, and tore it free of the tape holding it in place.

  And Whiteman still grinned, his hands still moving, content that I couldn’t stop him.

  I raised the gun, now totally confident that he’d previously discovered it, but had replaced it, now unloaded, in a final perverse action.

  But it felt loaded, and I knew the weight difference.